In 1964 Isaac Asimov and Stephen H Dole produced a version of Dole's Habitable Planets for Man intended for the general public. Planets for Man has some scientific material and notes removed to make it easy for the general public to read.

Stephen H Dole was the head of the RAND Corporation’s Human Engineering Group from 1959 to 1968, and carried out studies on the physical and physiological requirements of human beings in the spacecraft environment.

If you are writing your own science fiction, or are interested in planet-building, this is an excellent source of information, as it describes the constraints that limit where humans can live such as surface gravity, temperature, atmospheric composition and other factors.

Note that units of measurement are a muddle of metric, centimetre-gram-second (cgs), and American units such as pounds, miles, psi etc. Temperatures are given in degrees Fahrenheit with the conversion to Celsius in parentheses.

Planets for Man may be downloaded as a PDF here (7.8 MB, 243 pp)

Chapter headings:

1 - The Coming Search

2 - Human Requirements

3 - The Properties of Planets

4 - Planetary Habitability

5 - Probability of Habitable Planets

6 - The Nearest Candidates

7 - Star Hopping

8 - An Appreciation of the Earth

Afterword - Spaceflight and Human Destiny

Glossary

Related Reading Material

Index

About the Authors