Leonard David's INSIDE OUTER SPACE

Credit: Purdue University Press

Book Review: Calculated Risk – The Supersonic Life and Times of Gus Grissom by George Leopold, Purdue University Press, 416 pages (Hardcover); U.S. $29.95.

Today, back on July 21, 1961, Virgil I. “Gus” Grissom piloted a suborbital mission of Project Mercury, boosted by a Mercury-Redstone 4 rocket that was topped by an escape tower and the Liberty Bell 7 single-seater capsule.

Credit: NASA

That pioneering flight lasted all of 15 minutes and 37 seconds, reaching an altitude of 118 miles, with Grissom splashing down safely in the Atlantic. However, explosive bolts unexpectedly fired and blew the hatch off, causing water to flood into the spacecraft.

Grissom’s dramatic rescue and a possible reason for the hatch blowing is one of numerous gems in this outstanding, well-written book by George Leopold, a veteran technology journalist and science writer who has covered the nexus between technology and policy for over thirty years.

Purdue University Press published this book as part of its Bicentennial Legacy Project. This volume is also under the Purdue Studies in Aeronautics and Astronautics.

Grissom in Gemini-3 spacecraft.
Credit: NASA

This book chronicles the life of the late Gus Grissom, Purdue’s first astronaut and details his Gemini 3 mission, the first manned Project Gemini flight that he flew with John Young in March1965. In an unofficial nod to the sinking of his Mercury craft, Grissom named the first Gemini spacecraft Molly Brown after the popular Broadway show The Unsinkable Molly Brown.

Sadly, Grissom was one of the three astronauts killed in the January 27, 1967, Apollo 1 launch pad fire.

Calculated Risk draws from interviews with fellow astronauts, NASA engineers, family members and friends of Grissom to place his career in the context of the Cold War and the history of human spaceflight.

George Leopold has written an engaging and fact-filled account of Grissom’s life that spotlights the late astronaut’s professionalism and daring in the context of the Cold War and the history of human spaceflight.

For more information, go to:

http://www.thepress.purdue.edu/titles/format/9781557537454

Credit: CP Curtis Press

Book Review: No Bucks, No Buck Rogers: Creating the Business of Commercial Space by Derek Webber, CP Curtis Press; 2017; U.S. $42.95.

This is an engaging, well-written, and fact-filled book regarding commercial space exploration.

Webber has long been associated with giving space the business, and his insider looks at how best to build the economic case for space is documented in this volume.

This over 270-page book is divided into sections:

Military and Governmental Beginnings; Traditional Commercial Space Businesses; Transition-enabling Businesses; Commercial Space Exploration Businesses; and Creating the Business of Commercial Space.

You can tell by these section listings, this is a no-nonsense look into space engineering, marketing and finance along with other business aspects. The volume also serves up fascinating projections into the future – specifically, lunar commerce, asteroid mining, space solar power, as well as space settlement.

Author Derek Webber

The author provides the reader unique insights, including accounts and details of multi-million dollar satellite and launch vehicle negotiations.

As Webber explains, the intent of this personal look is to detail and document “a massive paradigm shift” from old space to new space. The author has pulled together, not only an impressive roster of past, present, and future enterprises, but also the cast of characters that have been, in my view, renaissance agents – those individuals that have helped shape commercial space.

I was particularly drawn to the more futuristic opportunities. There’s a very healthy dose of detail concerning space tourism – which often takes on the ambience of tapping fusion power. But as Webber notes, “without true re-usability, enabled by space tourism, none of the future economic developments would be possible.”

The book also includes valuable general reading citations and key data sources, along with a selection of illustrations and photos, many published for the first time.

In his career, Derek Webber has been engaged in many of the significant developments of commercial space. As the Director of Spaceport Associates, he developed key space tourism market research data, and is currently presiding over the “Gateway Earth” space policy initiative.

For more information on this highly-informative book, go to:

http://www.curtis-press.com/published-books/

Credit: SWF

The Secure World Foundation (SWF) has published an impressive handbook, intended to reach two categories of new actors in pioneering the space frontier:

• National governments engaged in developing national space policies and regulations, and
• Start-up companies, universities, and all other non-governmental entities beginning their first forays into space activities.

Changing face of space

In the handbook’s foreword, Michael Simpson, SWF’s Executive Director, points to the changing face of space.

“More than 70 states, commercial companies, and international organizations currently operate more than 1,500 satellites in Earth orbit. Driven largely by the commoditization of space technology and the lowering of barriers to participation, the number of space actors is growing,” Simpson writes. “This broadening of space has both advantages and disadvantages.”

Signing of the Outer Space Treaty. Soviet Ambassador Anatoly F. Dobrynin,
UK Ambassador Sir Patrick Dean, US Ambassador Arthur J. Goldberg, US President
Lyndon B. Johnson and others observe as US Secretary of State Dean Rusk signs the
Outer Space Treaty on January 27, 1967 in Washington, DC
Source: UNOOSA.

Accelerated growth

On one side, Simpson observes, this growth is leading to greatly increased technological innovation, lower costs, and greater access to the beneficial capabilities and services offered by satellites.

“However, the accelerated growth in space activities and the influx of new actors has the potential to exacerbate many of the current threats to the long-term sustainable use of space,” SWF’s Simpson writes. “These threats include on-orbit crowding, radio-frequency interference, and the chances of an incident in space sparking or escalating geopolitical tensions on Earth.”

Statistical representation of the
estimated 500,000 pieces of space debris one centimeter and larger in orbit.
Source: Analytical Graphic

Array of topics

The over 140-page handbook is both succinct and readable, rich in comment on a large number of topics, from space treaties, freedom of exploration and use of space, space traffic management, and orbital debris to use of nuclear power sources in space and protection of celestial bodies.

SWF’s stated intent of the volume is to provide new actors with a broad overview of the fundamental principles, laws, norms, and best practices for peaceful, safe, and responsible activities in space.

To access this highly informative handbook, go to:

https://swfound.org/media/205710/swf_handbook_for_new_actors_in_space_2017_edition.pdf

Credit: U.S. Air Force

CNN is ready to drop on the TV watcher a special report – “War in Space: The Next Battlefield” – airing Tuesday, November 29^th at 9 p.m. Eastern Time.

“The stakes couldn’t be higher. How the US responds to this new threat could determine who wins the defining conflict of the 21st century,” explains a CNN overview on the television show.

The first X-37B Orbital Test Vehicle waits in the encapsulation cell of the Evolved Expendable Launch vehicle on April 5, 2010 at the Astrotech facility in Titusville, Fla. Half of the Atlas V five-meter fairing is visible in the background.
Credit: U.S. Air Force

Advanced capabilities

Those featured in the show include: Gen. John Hyten, head of US Strategic Command; Gen. William Shelton, former head of Space Command; and Peter Singer, who advises the Defense Department on space threats and authored “Ghost Fleet: A Novel of the Next World War,” which runs through a scenario of space war.

America is “quietly developing advanced capabilities” that could, some day, have defensive or offensive missions in space, explains a CNN promo on the show.

Sounding the alarm

New weapons include the US Navy’s Laser Weapons System, or LAWs, the US military’s first operational laser weapon now deployed in the Persian Gulf on board the USS Ponce. Also, add in the X-37B, a pilotless space drone resembling the space shuttle without windows or a cockpit, a craft that has already flown multiple missions to space, CNN explains.

Russia and China are making rapid advances, with some of the most senior military commanders sounding the alarm that this is a war — the next world war and the first to extend beyond the confines of Earth – one that America could lose.

For more information on this CNN production, go to:

http://www.cnn.com/2016/11/28/politics/space-war-us-military-preparations/index.html

Credit: The University of Pennsylvania Press

Heavenly ambitions

For more information on this topic and related issues, take a look at this book, Heavenly Ambitions – America’s Quest to Dominate Space by Joan Johnson-Freese, Professor in the Department of National Security Affairs at the Naval War College.

Chapters include: “Space: The Final Cold War Frontier”; “Space Weapons: Fact and Fiction”; and “Globalizing Space.”

Resources

For more information on this book, published by The University of Pennsylvania Press, go to:

http://www.upenn.edu/pennpress/book/14608.html

Listen to this podcast by Johnson-Freese at:

http://www.upenn.edu/pennpress/podcast/pp_podcast_johnsonfreese.mp3

Also, check out the latest from Johnson-Freese, Space Warfare in the 21st Century: Arming the Heavens.

This book examines the recent shift in US space policy and the forces that continually draw the US back into a space-technology security dilemma.

The dual-use nature of the vast majority of space technology, meaning of value to both civilian and military communities and being unable to differentiate offensive from defensive intent of military hardware, makes space an area particularly ripe for a security dilemma.

For more information on this offering, go to:

https://www.routledge.com/Space-Warfare-in-the-21st-Century-Arming-the-Heavens/Johnson-Freese/p/book/9781138693883