April 20, 2009
Hotel magnate Robert Bigelow is developing an inflatable space station called the TransHab, where, for a mere $12 million, vacationers will be able to spend four weeks. All he needs is a space buggy to get his vacationers there. In this snappy survey of present-day rocket technology and schemes, science writer Bizony (The Rivers of Mars
) tells readers where the action is. Internet entrepreneurs like Amazon’s Jeff Bezos and Paypal founder Elon Musk are enviously regarding outer space with cool intellect and drawing up plans for spaceships. Musk’s Falcon rocket reached space successfully, and his company plans to take satellites and other payloads into space for commercial and government customers. But not only billionaires can participate in the space race: both Bigelow and NASA are dangling prizes worth tens of millions of dollars in front of aspiring space moguls to spur creation of new technologies. Bizony’s book is not a how-to manual with instructions for launching a rocket from the backyard. Rather, his descriptions of fuel systems and spaceship design in accessible language could inspire science buffs to take up the challenge. Illus.
June 15, 2009
Despite the playful title, this book is really about the emerging space tourism industry and the civilian use of outer space. Bizony ("One Giant Leap: Apollo 11 Remembered") details everything a space tourism company must do to be successful. To qualify officially as an astronaut, a traveler needs to fly above 100 km (62 miles). This can be achieved through a suborbital flight, one that goes up to that level and then returns to Earth, a trip that normally takes only a few hours. Orbital spaceflight is more difficult to achieve, for it requires a craft to reach Earth's escape velocity, which is 17,500 mph. The Russians now profit from space tourism, and private industry will probably offer suborbital hops within a decade. Bizony shows which spaceship designs are best suited to space tourism; for the industry to succeed, craft and systems must be as reliable and safe as commercial aviation. VERDICT Bizony clearly explains spaceflight science for a popular audience. Taking a more optimistic outlook than Neil Comins's "The Hazards of Space Travel: A Tourist's Guide", this is a good choice for armchair space buffs wanting to explore vicariously our final frontier.Jeffrey Beall, Univ. of Colorado, Denver
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