Space Commerce – The Inside Story By The People Who Are Making It Happen by Langdon Morris and Kenneth J. Cox, Editors, An Aerospace Technology Working Group Book; $27.95; 2010.
Here’s a very readable and informative look at giving space the business! That is, how various forms of space commerce are evolving on a trajectory showing value and speedy growth – a bright space future that will offer products and services of benefit to all.
This is the third book by the Aerospace Technology Working Group (ATWG) in partnership with the International Space University and the International Institute of Space Commerce.
In many ways, this unique volume provides the reader a 101 basics on space commerce, as well as what’s in the offing. You’ll find chapters on both the challenges ahead for a new space economy and entrepreneurial niche markets to commercial spaceports in the Americas to jurisdictional choice and its impact upon space businesses…even a look at the prospect for a lunar economy.
Throughout the book’s 400-plus pages and 24 chapters, you’ll better appreciate the “dynamic field” of space commerce, as flagged by former NASA astronaut, Bruce McCandless II, in his foreword.
Indeed, the book delivers on its subtitle. Timely perspectives by the people that are engaged in making space commerce happen are captured in this distinctive volume. “They share a common impatience with incremental development and bureaucracy, and will lead the reader in exploring the frontier of this emerging business venue,” McCandless points out.
All too often, space commerce is described as solely the arena of space telecommunications. What the reader finds in this book is a panorama of possibilities, many of them taking shape right at this moment.
In a closing chapter, the editors sum up the future that awaits…in terms of space commerce: “In this endeavor, profit and altruism are not opposite poles, estranged from one another, but rather they offer the potential to unite in the development space by and for the benefit of entrepreneurs, investors, explorers, citizens, and humans, and for Earth.”
For more information on this book, go to:
http://www.atwg.org/atwg_publications.html
By Leonard David