Mobile Suit Gundam: High FrontierLife In The Universal Century
In addition to being the penultimate year of the 20th Century and the 2nd Millennium, 1999 marked an historic dual anniversary. It was the twentieth anniversary of the popular Japanese anime series, 「機動 戦士 ガンダム」 (Mobile Suit Gundam). It was also the 25th anniversary of the original concept that evolved into The High Frontier: Human Colonies In Space (1977, Morrow Press/Bantam, ISBN 0-553-11016-0; reprinted 1989, SSI Press, ISBN 0-9622379-0-6; updated 2000, Apogee Books, ISBN 1-896522-67-X) by Princeton University professor Gerard K. O’Neill (1927–1992), one of the principal sources on which the Gundam saga is based. Although much has already been written about (Nippon) Sunrise’s Gundam Saga, the focus has generally been on either the characters (chara) or the mechanics (mecha). My purpose here is to detail the Real Science behind the science fiction, giving a general overview of the physical aspects of Gundam world and the scientific speculations and fact upon which it is based. These are the scientific underpinnings of the background against which the Saga is played, the details too often obscured by the foreground action. Contents
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Universal Century, Total Confusion