culminates the series by taking you on a journey from the present to the future. The Soviet Union steadily matured its Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles (ICBMs), Submarine-Launched Ballistic Missiles (SLBMs), civilian launch vehicles, and tactical missiles across a broad front to reach approximate parity with the United States, only to see it all crumble with the Soviet empire's collapse in late 1991. The book explains how Russia resurrected its space programs and maintains a respectable presence in space today. In 1983 President Ronald Reagan inaugurated a large Ballistic Missile Defense (BMD) program called the Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI) to deter Soviet nuclear-armed ICBMs, SLBMs; and their smaller cousins Medium and Intermediate Range Ballistic Missiles (MRBMs/IRBMs) from striking the homeland. Although SDI was never implemented in its full glory, several dozen BMD missiles stand watch in Alaska and California today. This book takes you inside today's burgeoning commercial space efforts (mostly in the United States) and the latest government space programs and launch vehicles worldwide. You'll learn why the "death" of rocket science as we know it today is not that far away, and what is most likely to replace rockets as we know them. You'll be taken way beyond rocket science with thought-provoking and well-researched chapters on superintelligent computers; far-out propulsion systems that are technically feasible; the search for extraterrestrial intelligence (where are they?); humanity's accelerating evolution (where is it going, and how long will it take?); cosmology (how many universes are there?; is space infinite?); physics (is a theory of everything possible?); the long-neglected spiritual evolution of our race that scientists fail to mention, but that will play a dominant role in where we're going in the future; and finally what awaits us in the afterlife. Read this book if you seek answers to perplexing questions: Does God really exist? Why are we here? Why does evil seem more powerful than good if God's all-powerful? What happens after we die?