| REALIZING TOMORROW The Path to Private Spaceflight Chris Dubbs Emeline Paat-Dahlstrom Charles D. Walker (Fwd.) Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, June 2011 |
Rating: 5.0 High |
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| ISBN-13 978-0-8032-1610-5 | ||||
| ISBN-10 0-8032-1610-6 | 344pp. | HC/BWI | $34.95 | |
| Page 13: | "NASA also agreed to conduct a summer study session with Stanford University at its Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, California, the following year." |
| Whatever happened with this? Was it what the book calls the Second Princeton Conference? |
| Page 17: | "But the Ames participants determined that it wouldn't work and settled instead for a redesigned colony that had to rotate at 1 rpm to achieve 1 g." |
| Why would the original design not work? Coriolis-force disorientation at 3 rpm? |
| Page 20: | "During the years of its greatest popularity, O'Neill's colony designs utilized three basic shapes..." |
| Number error: S/B "their". |
| Page 24: | "Although a fictionalized account, the editors pointed out that the article was not science fiction but a visualization of the outcome of a serious study..." |
| Dangling participle: S/B "Although it was a fictionalized account". |
| Page 48: | "Truax built a dummy version of the rocket for the advisor to display at Los Angeles shopping centers to raise money. He didn't." |
| Vague: Didn't raise money, or didn't display the rocket? |
| Page 70: | "Those whose name did not appear on the list were left to wonder..." |
| S/B "names"? |
| Page 73: | "Rose conceded that the astronauts were doing alright tending the CFES when they had time to do so." |
| Spelling: S/B "all right". |
| Page 82: | "Photogenic and at ease with the media, public relations came easily to McAuliffe." |
| Dangling participle: S/B "McAuliffe took to public relations easily" or equivalent. |
| Page 104: | "He had worked with Gerard O'Neill in Princeton and Freeman Dyson at the Space Studies Institute." |
| S/B "Institute for Advanced Studies"? |
| Page 115: | "Moments later the bus drove by discarded N-1 rocket tanks, the legendary boosters that would have carried the Russians to the moon..." |
| Rewrite... |
| Page 123: | "Here the crew made the traditional 'pit stop'—urinating on the wheel of the cosmonaut van—said to have been pioneered by Gagarin on the way to the launch pad in 1961." |
| More like a 'pet stop' in my opinion. |
| Page 131: | "They had already shown a certain daringness and bravado..." |
| "Daring" is also a noun. |
| Page 137: | "She would normally rest her head against the window until it ached from the cold of the glass." |
| Nit: S/B "quartz". |
| Page 142: | "The white, conical-shaped ATV stood..." |
| S/B "cone-shaped" or "conical". |
| Page 144: | "In fact, he argued that the third stage of the Saturn IV-B had sufficient thrust as an SSTO to send an eight-thousand-pound Gemini capsule into orbit." |
| Terminology: S/B "the third stage of the Saturn V, the S-IVB,". (See The S-IVB.) |
| Page 145: | "The friend turned out to be none other than Arthur C. Clark and settled instead for a redesigned colony that had to rotate at 1 rpm to achieve 1 g." |
| S/B "Clarke" (as it is down the page a bit, and later in the book.) |
| Page 148: | "...aerospace engineer Maxwell Hunter, who was then working for Lockheed Martin as a consultant." |
| Anachronism: S/B "Lockheed Corporation" or "Lockheed Missiles and Space Company". This was 1984; the merger with Martin-Marietta did not take place until March 1995. |
| Page 153: | "...the DC-X team would conduct eight hover flight tests until 1995, reaching a maximum height of 2,500 meters." |
| Why metric, all of a sudden? |
| Pages 154-5: | "Although still advertised as one of the potential vehicles that could be used by Space Adventures on their suborbital flights, Hudson knew he would have to go after the low Earth orbt communications satellite market..." |
| Dangling participle: S/B Although Space Adventures still advertised Roton as one of the potential vehicles that could be used on their suborbital flights, |
| Page 159: | "The airframe of choice was Rutan's homebuilt kit aircraft, the Long-EZ. With a twenty-six-foot wing span and signature Rutan canard configuration, the choice was based on the EZ's pusher configuration (engine mounted forward of the propeller) and good power-off glide capability." |
| Dangling participle as written: S/B "the Long-EZ, with a twenty-six-foot wing span and signature Rutan canard configuration. The choice was based on the EZ's pusher configuration (engine mounted forward of the propeller) and good power-off glide capability. |
| Page 160: | "With plans for developing a suborbital vehicle under way in 2003, XCOR was one of first companies [...] to proactively engage with and lobby Congress..." |
| Missing word: S/B 'was one of the first companies". |
| Page 161: | "XCOR submitted its FAA licensing application in November 2003 and received its license the year after, only the second company to be so licensed." |
| Which was the first? Rotary Rockets? |
| Page 161: | "Its engine incorporates electric ignition that can be stopped and started in midflight as often as needed and is capable of three and a half minutes of intermittent engine boost." |
| Wording: S/B "electric ignition, can be stopped and started in midflight as often as needed, and". (I'd also delete the second instance of "engine"; it's redundant.) |
| Page 163: | "Incorporated in 2001, Blue Origin did not go public until 2003, and the company remains tight-lipped..." |
| Wording: Sounds as though it's describing an IPO, but does not mean that. S/B "Blue Origin did not make its plans public" or equivalent. |
| Page 167: | "...very far from their roots on the small Greek island of Lesvos." |
| Usually it's spelled "Lesbos", which makes the inhabitants Lesbians. Was this spelling chosen to stave off bad jokes? |
| Page 171: | "...which recounts Lindbergh's methodical strategy for winning the Ortieg Prize, awarded for the first nonstop flight from New York to Paris." |
| a) Spelling: S/B "Orteig". b) Missing word: S/B "first nonstop solo flight". |
| Page 173: | "...Lindbergh's 1927 winning of the $25,000 Ortieg Prize..." |
| Spelling: S/B "Orteig". |
| Page 174: | "What better location for the foundation than the city that had helped Lindbergh win the Ortieg Prize?" |
| Spelling: S/B "Orteig". |
| Page 179: | "...Kevin Kelkoven, former CEO and chair of JDC Uniface, became a $1 million supporter." |
| Spelling: S/B "JDS Uniphase". |
| Page 194: | "The lithesome, gull-winged White Knight..." |
| Vocabulary: S/B "lissom"? |
| Page 216: | "Rutan had chosen to display the spaceship in its original state after the 21 June maiden suborbital flight [...] with a crumpled fuselage showing the difficulties Melvill had encountered on the historic flight." |
| Just how badly damaged was this "crumpled fuselage"? It couldn't be very bad, or they never would have won the X-Prize. I think another word would have served better than "crumpled," therefore. |
| Page 222: | "Whitehorn remembers Branson telling him to register the Virgin Brand and keep an eye on space." |
| Missing word: S/B "the Virgin Galactic brand". |
| Page 224: | "By the time Pan Am closed the list in 1971, an astonishing ninety-three thousand people had signed up for a lunar flight, including such notables as Ronald Reagan." |
| On page 7, the authors declare that the list contained more than 80,000 names at the time of the final Apollo mission. That was in December 1972. |
| Page 234: | "They have hobnobbed like movie stars in the Hollywood hills in Bel Air..." |
| Vocabulary: S/B "hobnobbed with movie stars". "Hobnob" means "to associate with". |
| Page 255: | "SpaceX plans to have its heavier lift Falcon 9 ready to launch by the end of 2010." |
| Missing hyphen: S/B "heavier-lift Falcon 9". |
| Page 267: | "On that December evening, as SpaceShipTwo stood bathed in dramatic spotlight, decades of dreams for private access to space took on substance." |
| Missing word: S/B "dramatic spotlight beams". |
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