Archive for the ‘Space Book Reviews’ Category
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April 28th, 2026
Space-based data centers would place data processing and storage systems for AI and other computing needs into satellites.
This could reduce the land, electricity, and water needed for data centers on Earth.
Several companies have begun development of data centers in space, but there are engineering and economic barriers to deployment.
The U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) has released a new Science & Tech Spotlight report: Data Centers in Space.
Key Takeaways of the report
- Placing data centers in space could reduce the demand for resources from these facilities on Earth.
- Data centers generate excess heat, but space does not cool computing hardware efficiently. This could be a major engineering challenge.
- A significant increase in the number of satellites in orbit could be difficult to manage and cause collisions.
To access this GAO report, go to:
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Image credit: GAO
On the Horizon: Three Science and Technology Trends That Could Affect Society.
The Government Accountability Office (GAO) examined how these three technologies could evolve over the next decade. These transformative technologies are trending toward maturity and may need congressional attention over the next 10 years.
These technologies are:
- Neural implants for human augmentation.
- General purpose robots.
- Orbital debris removal technologies.
Orbital debris
Image credit: GAO
GAO reports that there are more than 15,000 pieces of orbital debris currently tracked, with more than a million pieces that are too small to track but can still damage satellites and other spacecraft that provide important services.
Technology is in development to actively remove, relocate, or repurpose large, non-tumbling debris. This could reduce the risk of a catastrophic cascade of collisions, but would not eliminate it because small or tumbling debris constitute the vast majority of dangerous debris.
Legal difficulties
Further development and use of novel technologies may be hampered by possible legal difficulties posed by the Outer Space Treaty.
Image credit: GAO
Policymakers could consider a variety of options, including supporting targeted research to fill technological gaps or initiating legal analyses to develop solutions to legal difficulties.
GAO is not making recommendations but has identified several policy considerations for the Congress and others to weigh as these technologies continue developing.
Image credit: GAO
Read the full report — On the Horizon: Three Science and Technology Trends That Could Affect Society – go to:
https://www.gao.gov/assets/gao-26-108079.pdf
Also, go to video at:
In his online “Diary of the 12th Man”, Harrison Schmitt, Apollo 17 astronaut, has completed another chapter with a section dedicated to “Origin of Life.”
“I have undertaken a long-running project to write a personal account of the Apollo 17 Mission on which I flew to the Moon as the Lunar Module Pilot and scientist,” explains Schmitt. “This diary also attempts to integrate much of the mission’s scientific results to date with the operations that were necessary to explore the valley of Taurus-Littrow.”
Ronald Wells, Editor-in-Chief, notes that Chapter 13, Section 2, focuses on the origin of life here on our home planet and extends lunar regolith geology to a water-rich Earth.
Artist’s rendering of the LCROSS spacecraft and Centaur separation at the Moon.
Image credit: NASA
“The section presages the possible eventual return of similar regolith material by the Artemis astronauts from lunar south polar areas where H2O has been detected,” Wells notes, for example, by NASA’s Lunar Crater Observation and Sensing Satellite (LCROSS) and its Centaur stage that impacted the Moon in October 2009.
That purposely crashed mission was to determine if water-ice exists in a permanently shadowed crater at the Moon’s south pole. NASA formally announced that data from LCROSS “indicates that the mission successfully uncovered water…near the Moon’s south pole.”
Readers can access this chapter and sections in the right sidebar at:
Wait-a-Minute!
Image credit: Barbara David
It is a wait-a-minute, hard-hitting NASA report issued on the crewed Boeing Starliner mission to the International Space Station in 2024, in redacted form.
NASA defines the incident in the same category as the Space Shuttle Columbia and Challenger disasters.
An Anomalies Review Investigation Team identifies lessons learned in the flawed Starliner mission, focused on propulsion system anomalies experienced during the Crew Flight Test.
Troubled flight
New NASA chief, Jared Isaacman, underscored the seriousness of Starliner’s troubled crewed flight, labeling it as a “Type A mishap,” a mission that could put astronauts in danger.
NASA astronauts Suni Williams (left) and Butch Wilmore during pre-launch Boeing Starliner spacecraft simulator workout at NASA’s Johnson Space Center.
Image credit: NASA/Robert Markowitz
Starliner was not designated a serious mishap right from the start, Isaacman said, citing internal pressure to keep Boeing on board and flights on track.
Go to the full (redacted) report — Commercial Crew Program Starliner Tests & Anomalies Review (STAR) Investigation Team and Starliner Data Review Team (SDRT) Report – at:
https://www.nasa.gov/wp-content/uploads/2026/02/nasa-report-with-redactions-021926.pdf?emrc=76e561
Wait-a-Minute!
Image credit: Barbara David
The number of objects in orbit has surged over the past two decades, driven largely by the expansion of commercial space activity.
This critical orbital infrastructure is under threat. Congestion from space debris is rising, creating a strategic vulnerability for the entire planet.
Without mitigation, the probability of a serious collision occurring by 2032 is potentially 29% in certain altitude zones.
Those are a few observations by a new report — Clear Orbit, Secure Future: A Call to Action on Space Debris — from the World Economic Forum and the Center for Space Futures. They have jointly led several community consultations to assess the escalating risk and economic cost of space debris, particularly the growing collision risk it presents over the coming decade.
Image credit: World Economic Forum/Center for Space Futures
Economic forecast
The report is a product of a close collaboration with the Saudi Space Agency and LeoLabs to develop an orbital population model, and with Novaspace to produce an economic forecast that quantifies the potential economic impact of space debris on the global space economy.
The new forecast projects that space debris could impose a direct cost of up to $42.3 billion over the next decade, a “hidden tax” on the space economy.
To access the full report, go to:
https://reports.weforum.org/docs/WEF_Clear_Orbit_Secure_Future_2026.pdf
Born to Explore – John Casani’s Grand Tour of the Solar System by Jay Gallentine; Nebraska Press; 400 pages; Hardcover, $39.95.
This fascinating read centers on one of the most valued leaders that worked for the Jet Propulsion Laboratory and managed a slew of NASA projects, including Voyager, Galileo, and the Cassini mission to Saturn.
For those that had their own close-encounter with John Casani – as this reporter did several times – he was a tour-de-force of facts, enthusiasm, and stick-to-it management guidance.
Jay Gallentine, an award-winning space historian from Minnesota, has written an absorbing look at this legendary leader that rose through JPL’s ranks to a senior executive.
As the author skillfully notes, Casani battled politics, funding issues, the laws of physics, and also on occasion his JPL compatriots. “We didn’t know how to do what were supposed to do. We were too dumb to know that what they were askin’ us to do would really be hard,” said Casani on his early days at JPL as cited by Gallentine.
Casani harbored a persistent drive to undertake some of the most momentous – and nine-figure space missions — ever embarked upon.
Sadly, John Casani passed away on June 19, 2025 at 92 years of age – and did not see the publication of this masterfully written volume.
So often, we space cadets herald the hardware of space victories in far off corners of our solar system. These are legacy successes made possible by individuals that accept and confront challenges like no other.
But thanks to Gallentine’s account through the book’s 27 chapters, the reader can appreciate the expertise Casani brought to America’s adventurous, ambitious and audacious space exploration program. It is an outstanding story told and a significant entry in the Nebraska Press Outward Odyssey series.
For more information, go to:
https://www.nebraskapress.unl.edu/nebraska/9781496206657/born-to-explore/
John Casani and Jay Gallentine.
Image credit: Jay Gallentine
“This year marks half a century since Spinoff began capturing the commercial impact of NASA. As we explore the universe for the benefit of all, NASA remains committed to ensuring technologies developed for space exploration and discovery have direct benefits here on Earth,” explains Daniel Lockney, Program Executive for NASA’s Technology Transfer Program at NASA Headquarters.
“As we set our sights on the Moon and pave the way to Mars, NASA’s return to the lunar surface is fueling America’s commercial marketplace,” Lockney states.
To deep dive into this year’s informative document, go to:
https://ntts-prod.s3.amazonaws.com/t2p/prod/spinoff/NASA-Spinoff-2026.pdf
The Pale Blue Data Point – An Earth-Based Perspective on the Search for Alien Life by Jon Willis; The University of Chicago Press; 256 pages; Hardcover, $26.00.
As a professor of astronomy at the University of Victoria in British Columbia, Willis has written a highly-engaging, captivating and timely book.
In the preface of this volume, the author calls attention to the dramatic landscapes right here on home planet – the Earth. “Our pale blue data point offers many opportunities to learn about the life that exists upon it,” adding that our world offers clues as to the prospects for life elsewhere.
Indeed, the past 30 years has served up a “golden generation” of exoplanet discovery, Willis explains. Moreover, this book offers the reader a look not only of astrobiology as a science, but what astrobiology looks like in the field – rich in scientific unknowns and eye-opening findings.
Willis underscores the work of exploration, from use of the submersible-equipped E/V Nautilus to contemplate the seas of Saturn’s and Jupiter’s moons to the mountaintop observatories in Chile that scout out extrasolar planets, as well as listening in on dolphins in the Bahamas to envisage the minds of alien intelligences.
The Pale Blue Data Point offers six enlightening and discerning chapters, such as “Twenty Thousand Pings Under the Sea: In Search of Alien Oceans,” “Swimming with Stromatolites: The Hunt for Martian Fossils,” and “So Long and Thanks for All the Fish: A Dolphin-Led Guide to Alien Communication.”
Given the rise of astrobiology and the search for life elsewhere in the cosmos, Willis asks “can a collection of tangential ideas, drawn from all points of the scientific compass, be made to fit into the circle of a new discipline?”
This book offers the reader the answer to that question, expertly written to spotlight astrobiology in action.
Lastly, the volume concludes with a “Further Travels” section, a guide for the reader’s own astrobiological opportunities, “whether metaphorically or indeed literally,” Willis suggests.
For more information about this perceptive, engaging and extremely readable book, go to:
https://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/P/bo253701931.html#anchor-gallery
This report from the Atlantic Council illuminates important defense and force planning considerations. Its three scenarios span a catastrophic nuclear detonation (NUDET) in low Earth orbit to debris-generating anti-satellite (ASAT) weapons to less aggressive action against commercial satellites.
The report makes the case for the development of policies, practical strategies, and more effective acquisition programs to better address a range of potential futures, considering possible space-related actions by Russia’s political leadership.
Image credit: U.S. Air Force/Airman 1st Class Karina Lopez
Countering Russian Escalation in Space is written by John J. Klein, a nonresident senior fellow in the Forward Defense program of the Atlantic Council’s Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security.
Clementine Starling-Daniels is a vice president at Beacon Global Strategies, the former director of the Atlantic Council’s Forward Defense program, and a nonresident senior fellow at the Council’s Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security.
To access the full report, go to:
Nuclear Weapons in Space – Orbital Bombardment and Strategic Stability has been issued by the Foreign Policy Research Institute (FPRI).
Written by Aaron Stein, President of the FPRI, this report points out that space technology is inherently dual-use.
“The platforms used to launch satellites can also be used to deliver atomic weapons. The same is true of defenses: The things built to shoot down incoming missiles can also be repurposed to shoot down satellites. The tensions between offense and defense have dominated how the United States has sought to manage access to space,” the report states.
Checklist suggestions
Stein proposes several checklist items:
Concept art for Project Excalibur (USAF)
- The U.S. should consider how to repurpose current missile defense interceptors to hold any Russian co-orbital satellites at risk
- Make explicit that any nuclear attack on U.S. origin satellites would invite retaliation
- Continue to invest in sensors to detect missile launch from adversary nations (including those fired south to travel over the South Pole)
- Be the insurer of last resort for private satellites that could be destroyed by a hostile act
To access the full report, go to:
https://www.fpri.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/stein_ona_91625.pdf
