In an inquiry that ranges from robots to religion, Paul Levinson asks why there is a deep-seated human desire to know what's "out there". Full of examples, "Realspace" asks some searching questions about space and the way we think about it.

Why do humans long to reach beyond the confines of our planet? Why, in an age when our voices routinely bounce off satellites to around the world and back, hasn't a human set foot on the moon for 30 years?
A visionary work by the most provocative and original thinker on technology and human communication since Marshall McLuhan, "RealSpace" traces the neat marriage of communication and transportation --talking and walking--that recently ended in a jarring separation. Throughout recent history, Levinson shows, rail lines and telegraphs, cars and radios, airplanes and television have been coupled in a synergy that allowed us to reach the places we heard about. But with the invention of the Internet and cell phones, our verbal reach has exceeded our corporeal grasp.
With a lucid, reflective style that spans philosophy, science fiction, religion, and technology, "RealSpace" reopens the final frontier, delving into the roots of our desire to know what's out there and exploring how we might actually make it one day. Packed with exciting, innovative, even revolutionary thinking about our future," RealSpace" is essential reading for everyone who has ever sat at a desk, gazed into the distance and imagined boarding a space shuttle.

"...engagingly humane and commonsensical." - Albert Borgmann, author of Holding on to Reality: The Nature of Information at the Turn of the Millennium "...a lucid argument for injecting new passion into the exploration of outer space.He is one of our very best writers on technology because he presents the big picture." - Michael Heim, author of The Metaphysics of Virtual Reality