Order from a Major Online Bookstore
Ultimate Book Price Comparison Engine
Save Your Time And Money
| AnyBook4Less.com | Order from a Major Online Bookstore |
|
| Home | Store List | FAQ | Contact Us | | ||
| Ultimate Book Price Comparison Engine Save Your Time And Money |
||
 |
Title: Inventions from Outer Space: Everyday Uses for Nasa Technology by David Baker ISBN: 0-375-40979-3 Publisher: Random House Inc Pub. Date: 09 May, 2000 Format: Hardcover List Price(USD): $25.00 |
Average Customer Rating: 3.67 (3 reviews)
Rating: 3
Summary: Don't Try to Justify Spaceflight on the basis of Spinoffs
Comment: Much has been made over the years of what NASA calls "spinoffs," commercial products that have at least some of their origins as a result of spaceflight-related research. Most years the agency puts out a book describing some of the most spectacular, and they range from angioplasty to body imaging for medical diagnostics to data analysis technology.
This book chronicles some of these more spectacular spinoffs. With the caveat that technology transfer is an exceptionally complex subject that is almost impossible to track properly, this book seeks to show the value of spaceflight by its technological lagniappe.
Whether good or bad, no amount of cost-benefit analysis, which the spinoff argument essentially makes, can sustain NASA's historic level of funding. Indeed, such books as "Inventions from Outer Space" fall victim to the point that there was no need to go to the Moon to create any particular commercial product. If we are seeking the development of MRI technology, for example, it is more cost effective to fund such a research program directly rather than to fly in space. Spinoffs are serendipity, and although they are useful they are not central to the quest for space.
More useful, I would assert, is a counterfactual question. How would life today be different if there were no space program? There can be no fully satisfactory answer to that question. One person's vision is another's belly-laugh. But perhaps we can begin with the elimination of the microchip. Whether our life would be significantly different is problematic, but I think many of the high technology capabilities we enjoy--starting with biomedical diagnostics and related technologies and ending with telecommunications breakthroughs--might well have followed different courses and perhaps have lagged beyond their present breakneck pace as a result. Some of us might well think that a positive development, though I doubt most would want to go back to typewriters, problematic global communication, etc. The point, of course, is that the past did not have to develop in the way that it did, and that there is evidence to suggest that the larger space program pushed technological development in certain paths that might have not been followed otherwise, both for good and ill. It remains to be seen how historians might seek to look at the overall impact of space technology on American lifestyles.
It is important that works such as "Inventions from Outer Space" take a critical look at this issue rather than simply catalog commercial products that may have some relationship to research undertaken by NASA for a different purpose.
Rating: 5
Summary: Excellent
Comment: What is fascinating about this book is the surprisingly unglamourous uses to which NASA technology has been put: it's not tricorders or machines that vanquish your foe with a directional pulse of pure energy that have trickled onto the terrestrial market, but heat resistant paint and non-stick coating for frying pans. Which is probably no bad thing. All in all an excellent read.
Rating: 3
Summary: Normal
Comment: It is a good book if you are interested in inventions and how they are involved in everday life, but it follows that formula that a lot of other books with the same topic
Thank you for visiting www.AnyBook4Less.com and enjoy your savings!
Copyright� 2001-2021 Send your comments
