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Title: Making Space Happen: Private Space Ventures and the Visionaries Behind Them by Paula Berinstein, Fiorella Terenzi ISBN: 0-9666748-3-9 Publisher: Plexus Publishing Pub. Date: May, 2002 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $24.95 |
Average Customer Rating: 5 (6 reviews)
Rating: 5
Summary: Coming: Access to Orbit
Comment: "Making space happen" is for me a phrase that conjures up visions of the world as portrayed in "2001: A Space Odyssey". But of course the world portrayed in that 1968 film -- one with routine space travel -- has not come to pass. Now, 45 years beyond our first, tentative journeys into space, that situation begs the question: Why not?
Paula Berinstein's book is a valuable component of the answer to that question. One reason is that Ms. Berinstein understands business and finance. Indeed, she makes her living advising others on business ventures. For this book (her sixth), she spent three years researching the economics of such ventures as tourism in space, and interviewing many of the movers and shakers in this burgeoning, but largely unnoticed, area.
Its publication is well-timed, for today the biggest barriers to getting into space are not technical ones; they are political and economic ones. This is why business sense is the important asset. Good businessmen with an interest in space -- space entrepreneurs -- are not so common as the techies; but they do exist. This book profiles a number of them, revealing that while getting into space is no cakewalk, it need not be as difficult as the powers that be maintain. One example is the chapter on Jim Benson. He took a look at NASA's Near Earth Asteroid Rendezvous (NEAR) mission, with its $250 million price tag, and decided it could be done a lot cheaper by the private sector. A feasibility study done in 1997 by industry experts confirmed that $25 million would do it. An order-of-magnitude cost reduction is not bad. (And note that this is with the existing stable of launch vehicles -- themselves much more expensive than they might be.)
Each chapter deals with one aspect of the problem (human health in microgravity, funding space ventures, insurance, laws, etc.) and profiles an individual or team of individuals actively working in that area. Those profiles include generous portions of the interviews with the subjects. Along with these interviews, some surprisingly candid, come cogent discussions of the relevant issues, supported where applicable by numbers. At the end of each chapter, Ms. Berinstein gives her own opinion of the facts and views just presented. These opinions reflect her admitted bias in favor of routine space travel, but are often skeptical about specific points.
Following the 20 chapters and an epilog on Dennis Tito, there are four appendices that go into greater detail about space tourism market issues, market surveys, regulatory issues, and propulsion. A bibliography, a glossary, a biographical sketch of the author, and a very thorough index round out the book. There are also 29 color and three black-and-white plates, many from photogrpahs taken by Ms. Berinstein herself.
I'd say this very readable book is a worthwhile introduction to some people who, relatively obscure today, might be making us all sit up and take notice in just a few years.
Rating: 5
Summary: Out of this World
Comment: This is a great book for long time space enthusiasts as well as those who have just caught the space bug.
This isn't a book about NASA or its programs, though she does discuss them. This is about private citizens who are trying to make space accessible to you and me.
She brings most of the players (individuals and organizations) into this book and what the current burning issues are. There are some people that I wish she would put into the book but this is a very minor quibble.
Her book is an easy read. It doesn't get bogged down in technobabble. She lets the people profiled in this speak themselves through long interviews.
The statistics and data she presents are well placed thus not becoming a distraction or interrupting the flow of reading the book.
There are some people that I didn't know even though I keep up to date on private endeavors. She also brings people in other countries who are involved in private space efforts which is good. We need to know more about what's going on in other nations and what their attitudes are regarding private space efforts and opinions on space generally.
This is a very informative book. She's fair and balance presenting the pros and cons of what it takes for private citizens to get into space.
She presents her opinions at the end of most chapters in a section clearly highlighted as opinion. Her book has helped me crystallized some half form opinions about some of the individuals and organizations that are involved in private space efforts.
If you're interested in who's making things happen space for us and what their technology, plans, and goals are, this is the book.
Good job, Paula!
Rating: 5
Summary: A remarkable book on the "Other Space Program"
Comment: Making Space Happen fills an important void in the dialog and literature on space exploration, exploitation and the future. Reading the visions and realizing how much is underway to achieve dramatic new breakthroughs is exhilarating. Telling these stories by bringing the cast of characters from out of the mainstream fully into the discussion provides many new insights -- and with solid credibility.
I learned an awful lot about some important and exciting initiatives I'd not been aware of -- though I consider myself a fairly serious student of space development and space issues. My assessment is that the two segments of the space industry -- the mainstream and these entrepreneurs in the Making Space Happen story -- have significant voids in their understanding of one another. This book can address one side of that imbalance -- if it is embraced by the mainstream.
I am impressed with how Paula Berninstein has been able to jump into such a complex field as space and in a very short time, capture so broadly and comprehensively the essence of today's challenges in space exploration. It's not that governments -- and particularly the U.S. -- have not "made space happen" in the past 4-5 decades nor realistically that governments ever will be out of the equation. However, her marvelous research and presentation has reinforced my firm conviction that it will ultimately be the private sector lead by entrepreneurs who, through space exploitation, will force the acceleration of space activities and bring the benefits of space finally back down to Earth in a substantial way.
Paula has taken a segment of the rapidly growing space industry that has been largely ignored by all the space "high-rollers" and put it on the map. It's disappointed me in the past to see senior "aerospace industry leaders" ignore and even belittle the creative thinkers and free-spirits who are suggesting unconventional approaches to long-standing space challenges. If these leaders had all the answers, the challenges would not remain so fundamental as high costs of getting to space and generating healthy return on investments -- from other than public coffers. NASA and the aerospace industry personify the bureaucratic approach to space exploration and real breakthroughs and progress will only come with the high-risk, creative directions such as those she's chosen to describe in this book.
Tom Rogers, for example, is one of the best thinkers of our time with regard to space tourism and the potential impact this new industry can have on our capability to get to space. He also has been justifiably critical of how the billions in public resources have been applied to advancing human presence in space. For this, he has not been well received by the establishment. Well, the establishment and all thinking people need to hear what Tom Rogers and the others in this very informative book have to say -- and moreover what they are actually doing to change the future. Then maybe the two segments of the space business will figure out how to cooperate and together make the next great leaps in space really happen.
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Title: Mining the Sky: Untold Riches from the Asteroids, Comets, and Planets (Helix Book) by John S. Lewis ISBN: 0201328194 Publisher: Perseus Books Group Pub. Date: 01 September, 1997 List Price(USD): $16.00 |
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Title: Space: The Free-Market Frontier by Edward L. Hudgins ISBN: 1930865198 Publisher: Cato Institute Pub. Date: July, 2002 List Price(USD): $15.00 |
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Title: The Space Elevator: A Revolutionary Earth-to-Space Transportation System by Bradley C. Edwards, Eric A. Westling ISBN: 0972604502 Publisher: Spageo Inc Pub. Date: 14 January, 2003 List Price(USD): $18.95 |
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Title: Islands in the Sky: Bold New Ideas for Colonizing Space by Stanley Schmidt, Robert Zubrin ISBN: 0471135615 Publisher: Wiley Pub. Date: 25 January, 1996 List Price(USD): $19.95 |
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Title: Entering Space: Creating a Spacefaring Civilization by Robert Zubrin ISBN: 1585420360 Publisher: Jeremy P. Tarcher Pub. Date: 03 August, 2000 List Price(USD): $13.95 |
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