Marooned on Eden — Robert L. Forward

Just what is it that makes us human? Just what quality impels us out to the stars, to search for meaning in our cold universe, to struggle against entropy and discover the nature of things?

The scientists on the first mission to Barbard's Star and Rocheworld thought they knew. They were confident, secure people. They had to be to have made the cut on the stringent psychological testing required. And they were at home exploring the galaxies, at home on Rocheworld with its alien mathematical genius natives, the flouwen -- at home because they had all the trappings of a million years of human technological innovation with them.

But what would happen to them if they lost their safety net of computers and gadgets? What would happen if they were -- MAROONED ON EDEN