MAKING SPACE HAPPEN

That mission starts with a sense of the business side of things. Space technologists abound. There are thousands of amateur rocketry enthusiasts, all across the U.S. Many just use pre-fabbed kits; but a fair portion build their rockets from scratch — which means designing them: engines, fuel grain or tankage, structure and aerodynamics, control and telemetry electronics, recovery mechanism, even launch pad in most cases. They are true rocket scientists, even if they don't get paid for it. Then there are plenty of former aerospace engineers, who used to get paid for it until the Cold War ended and the government lost much of its interest in space projects. And of course those government space projects gave us a history of 45 years of prior art, demonstrating the technical means of getting into space and doing useful things there.

No, the biggest barriers to getting into space today 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. Jim Benson is one example. He took a look at NASA's Near Earth Asteroid Rendezvous (NEAR) mission, with its $250 million price tag, and decided that 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.)

Reading Paula Berinstein's book is a rewarding journey. Part of the reason is that Ms. Berinstein understands business and finance. Indeed, she makes her living advising others on business ventures 2. For this book (her sixth), she spent three years profiling many of the movers and shakers in this burgeoning, but largely unnoticed, area. Those profiles include generous portions of the interviews with the subjects, some very revealing. Along with these there are 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 presented in preceding material. 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 epilogue on Dennis Tito, there are four appendices that go into greater detail about space tourism market issues, market surveys, regulatory issues, and propulsion. This final appendix, about propulsion, is the only thing I disliked about the book. It is a paraphrase, says Ms. Berinstein, from Rick Fleeter's Micro Space Craft 3. A bibliography, a glossary, a biographical sketch of the author, and an index round out the book. There are also 29 color and 3 black-and-white plates, many from photographs taken by Ms. Berinstein herself.

There are some errors. I counted 12 typos and three questionable descriptions (either unclear or plainly incorrect). That's not bad for a book of this size and scope; I could cite shorter books, from big-name publishers, that do far worse.

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