Archive for the ‘Space Book Reviews’ Category
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June 12th, 2025
Image credit: The Aerospace Corporation
This document provides a deep dive and excellent reference regarding the U.S. federal civil space budget between Fiscal Year 2023 and proposed spending in Fiscal Year 2025.
The term civil space is generally understood among the public and policymakers to refer to non-national security agencies with direct missions to space.
Increased national importance
As pointed out in this document, the growing number of civil space departments and agencies “is one way of measuring space’s increased national importance.”
Indeed, the ubiquitous use of space is also a result of capabilities becoming more accessible, “allowing department agendas to incorporate space as a tool rather than endeavor a space-centric, long-term, strategic mission,” the document adds.
“As a result, the emerging civil space enterprise resembles a complex food chain, with embedded interdependencies between agencies.”
Image credit: The Aerospace Corporation
Foundational dataset
A Comprehensive Guide to the U.S. Federal Civil Space Budget provides a foundational dataset for civil space budget analyses, developed by Lindsay DeMarchi, a policy analyst in the Center for Space Policy and Strategy at The Aerospace Corporation.
Projects that support, enable, or leverage space activities for civil purposes are found among more than 100 individual line items spread across 17 federal departments and agencies and funded by 4 different appropriations bills.
Priority areas
The second half of the report introduces a novel representation of the civil space budget by organizing the data into national priority areas:
♦ American Leadership and Manufacturing
♦ Workforce Development
♦ Fundamental Science
♦ Efficiency, Improvements, and Growth
♦ Homeland Security
♦ Infrastructure, Energy, and Resiliency
♦ Remote Sensing Applications
Credit: White House
The intent of this referential dataset is to begin a broader discussion of the direct and indirect relationships civil space budget line items have to broader national priorities.
To review the document — A Comprehensive Guide to the U.S. Federal Civil Space Budget – go to:
https://csps.aerospace.org/sites/default/files/2025-06/DeMarchi_FedSpaceBudget_20250609_4.pdf
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NASA has issued a new volume, Governing the Moon – A History, part of a series of monographs in aerospace history and a report for NASA’s Office of Technology, Policy, and Strategy, closed down in March 2025.
This invaluable read is authored by Stephen Buono, a Collegiate Assistant Professor in the Social Sciences at the University of Chicago.
The monograph is built around five chapters: The Moon’s Lawyer, Aldo Armando Cocca and the Germ of a Treaty; “A Rather Clumsy Attempt” – Moscow’s Moon Treaty; New York, Geneva, New York – The United Nations Negotiations; The Doldrums – Limping Toward the Finish Line, and “Armageddon for the Free Enterprise System” – The Moon Treaty in the American Scene.
Buono illuminates the treaty’s deep origins, the contributions of international space lawyers, the details of the negotiating process, the role played by the United States in shaping the final text, and the contributions of the treaty’s single most important author, Aldo Armando Cocca.
Nuanced and complicated
Known as the Moon Treaty, the Agreement Governing the Activities of States on the Moon and Other Celestial Bodies was adopted in 1979 by the United Nations General Assembly.
Nine candidate landing regions for NASA’s Artemis III mission The background image of the lunar South Pole terrain within the nine regions is a mosaic of LRO (Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter) WAC (Wide Angle Camera) images.
Image credit: NASA
However, negotiated over a decade, the treaty was not ultimately ratified.
Buono explains that this report, “if it is as useful to NASA as I intended, has provided a history of the Moon Treaty more nuanced and complicated than its politization in the 1980s may have at first suggested.”
Furthermore, Buono states that he has sought to illuminate the deep origins of the treaty; the contributions of international space lawyers to its intellectual maturation; the details of the negotiating process; as well as the role played by the United States in shaping the final text.
“As NASA prepares to launch humans to the Moon once more,” Buono continues, “it is my humble wish that the narrative presented here proves meaningful to the administration’s continued work on space governance.”
This publication is available as a free download at:
Artistic depiction of NASA astronauts at the lunar south pole carrying out early work to establish an Artemis Base Camp.
Image credit: NASA
Book Review: Space Piracy – Preparing for a Criminal Crisis in Orbit by Marc Feldman and Hugh Taylor, Published by John Wiley & Sons; 256 pages; E-Book Starting at $18.00; Hardcover Starting at $30.00.
This book is quite the lean into it, forward-thinking volume that takes on topics few researchers have tackled. It’s an invaluable look at space as a commercial resource, but primarily the prospect for crime, corruption, piracy, and war.
The authors are Marc Feldman, a Managing Partner at Eonia Capital, an aerospace and defense-based venture capital fund, and Hugh Taylor, Executive Editor of The Journal of Cyber Policy and a cybersecurity and enterprise technologist.
Talk about “high crimes” and misdemeanors!
Criminality in space is explored in this book, from space hacking to existing cybersecurity standards and practices in space, laws and treaties relevant to space crime, as well as cartels and kidnappers.
As Colonel Eric Felt of the US Space Force writes in the book’s foreword: “In my view, we can deter and defeat space pirates, but not by doing nothing. The book thoughtfully outlines specific actions that can and should be taken today, specific actions for the intelligence community, Space Force, private sector, and other stakeholders.”
Feldman and Taylor provide a viable and valuable read, indeed, a 101 course on the idea of space piracy. As they write, “we think the phenomenon will occur,” and offer suggestions for mitigating the risk. “We refer to our content as ‘speculative nonfiction,’” they add.
Space Piracy – Preparing for a Criminal Crisis in Orbit is an eye-opening volume. It does what the authors were seeking to do, to “catalyze the conversations that need to take place.”
Those that have a vested interest in the multi-billion dollar commercial space of today and what’s ahead, space exploration progress that is leading to space colonization, will find this book a tour guide of trouble-brewing possibilities.
For more information about this book, go to:
https://www.wiley.com/en-us/Space+Piracy%3A+Preparing+for+a+Criminal+Crisis+in+Orbit-p-9781394240210
Also, go to the Center for the Study of Space Crime, Piracy, and Governance at:
Take a look at this webinar: Space – The Next Frontier for Money Laundering at:
Also, check out the Space Beach Law Lab that is returning to the Queen Mary on March 25 to 27 for their second annual conference on space law.
Go to: https://www.spacelawlab.com/
NASA’s Small Spacecraft Systems Virtual Institute (S3VI) has released the 2024 State-of-the-Art Small Spacecraft Technology report.
This informative and detailed 2024 edition reflects updates in several areas, including formation flying and rendezvous and proximity operations, additive manufacturing, free space optical communications and hosted orbital services.
Invaluable insights
The document provides invaluable insights in numerous areas, including power, in-space propulsion, guidance, navigation, and control, as well as thermal control, smallsat avionics and deorbit systems.
The S3VI is located at the NASA Ames Research Center in California’s Silicon Valley. The S3VI is sponsored by NASA’s Space Technology Mission Directorate (STMD).
Image credit: S3VI
Improved capabilities
“Technology maturation and miniaturization continues to expand small spacecraft capabilities with the rise in complex SmallSat mission designs. These improved capabilities have broadened the common SmallSat platform resulting in larger CubeSats and smaller SmallSats,” the report notes.
The NASA Small Spacecraft Technology State-of-the-art report is updated annually to capture new information on publicly available small spacecraft systems from NASA and other sources.
Image credit: S3VI
Mass categories
SmallSats are generally grouped according to their mass, and this report adopts the following five small spacecraft mass categories:
- minisatellites are spacecraft with a total mass of 100 – 180 kg;
- microsatellites have a total spacecraft mass of 10-100 kg;
- nanosatellites have a total mass of 1 – 10 kg;
- picosatellites have a mass of 1 – 0.01 kg; and
- femtosatellites have a total spacecraft mass 0.01 – 0.09 kg.
Bridging technology gaps
“While updates in all chapters reflect this growth in the small spacecraft market,” the report points out, “a focused effort was made to update areas with recent technology developments that may ultimately bridge existing technology gaps.”
To access a copy of this report, go to:
https://www.nasa.gov/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/soa-2024.pdf?emrc=0945a0
Also, be sure to check out the resource-rich Small Spacecraft Systems Virtual Institute website at:
Uncertainty exists associated with operating in cislunar space, as well as on and around the Moon – so much so that a “security dilemma” between countries can evolve.
There is need to provide an opportunity for transparency, coordination, cooperation, and collaboration a new report suggests. It calls for inclusive engagement and decision-making concerning cislunar space, including the development of improved rules and best practices.
The Outer Space Institute has published a report on cislunar security: New Moon: A Cislunar Security Workshop Report.
The Outer Space Institute (OSI) is based at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver and is a network of world-leading space experts.
Earth’s Moon and cis-lunar space are new destinations for numbers of nations. To what extent is that presence demand or promote a military presence?
Image credit: Inside Outer Space
Military buildup
Defined in the report is that a security dilemma occurs “when a state, lacking clear information about whether a potential adversary is engaged in a military buildup, faces a choice between building up its own military, or doing nothing and risk being overwhelmed.”
Indeed, voices within U.S. national security circles have voiced support that the U.S. Space Force should have a cislunar military presence, strengthening the ability to guard commercial interests as a “cislunar economy” evolves.
One major issue identified in the report is lunar surface traffic management. It involves ensuring that one actor does not impede another actor – or imperil its personnel, equipment or installations – by approaching too closely or causing dust lofting or radio interference of some kind. “But what is a reasonable distance,” the report adds, “and who gets to decide?”
Carving up near-moon locales: How strategic could this be for military interests? (Image credit: Aerospace Corporation)
China’s lunar program
Given China’s growing progress in Moon exploration, via robots and eventual human treks to emplace an International Lunar Research Station (ILRS), there has been little effort by Western experts to analyze documents on cislunar space from China or, indeed, to engage with Chinese experts.
“Unfortunately, this only increases the risk of one or more security dilemmas,” the report observes.
Image courtesy U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) in its “2022 Challenges to Security in Space” report.
To access the full report — New Moon: A Cislunar Security Workshop Report — and its recommendations and conclusions, go to:
A signal is detected from other star folks. But what happens now?
The International Academy of Astronautics has outlined protocols for what to do if we discover extraterrestrials. The major points of the protocol fall into three areas:
- The detection of alien life should be carefully verified by repeated observations.
- The discovery should be publicized.
- No response should be sent without international consultation.
The late Frank Drake with cosmic equation to gauge the presence of intelligent life in the cosmos. The Drake Equation identifies specific factors believed to play a role in the development of civilizations in our galaxy.
Image credit: SETI Institute
Next-gen SETI
That factoid is one among many in Next-Gen SETI: Pioneering the Search for ET.
If you’re curious about the search for extraterrestrial intelligence, download a free eBook produced by the SETI Institute.
Learn about:
- The Allen Telescope Array and China’s FAST facility used to detect potential extraterrestrial signals.
- Different approaches like radio and optical methods that expand our search.
- Key scientific concepts and theories, including the Drake Equation and the Fermi Paradox.
- Societal implications and protocols for responding to extraterrestrial discoveries.
Download your free eBook at:
https://www.seti.org/sites/default/files/2025-01/SETI%20ebook%20%20final.7.9.24.pdf
The Center for Security and Emerging Technology within Georgetown University’s Walsh School of Foreign Service has issued a new report: Shaping the U.S. Space Launch Market
Key Takeaways from the document are:
The United States finds itself in the position of world leader in launch, with a relatively consolidated
market. The United States conducts 50% more launches than it did at the peak of the space race—
but more than five out of every six U.S. launches come from SpaceX.
While evaluating the American launch market’s ability to meet critical U.S. national security and
foreign policy needs, this paper found the following challenges and opportunities exist in the
market:
Opportunities
• The United States leads the world in space launch by nearly every measure: number of
launches, total mass to orbit, satellite count, and more.
• SpaceX’s emergence has provided regular, reliable, and relatively affordable launches to
commercial and national security customers.
• Alongside SpaceX is a small group of technically viable alternatives. This variety offers the
country a measure of resilience in the face of national security threats.
Challenges
• Today’s market consolidation coupled with the capital requirements necessary to develop
rockets make it difficult for new competitors to break in.
• China has shown the ability and willingness to invest the level of capital needed to create
international competitors to the American leaders.
Image credit: Center for Security and Emerging Technology
Source: Dates via Crunchbase and company websites
Recommendations
1. The U.S. Department of Defense and NASA should:
a. Conduct research and strategic investment toward in-space transportation technologies.
b. Execute small satellite missions and expand purchases of small launch vehicle services to cheaply test technology and encourage a competitive future launch market.
c. Expand launch infrastructure capacity, dispersion, and resilience to improve U.S. launch capacity in peacetime and safeguard it in case of conflict.
2. The federal government should promote competition in the commercial space launch industry by continuing to allocate launches among multiple competitive vendors to ensure resilience and innovation.
Given the national security implications of the launch market, the United States must continue to encourage innovation and progress. Technologies such as reusability have provided a window of time for U.S. advantage. Continued innovation will be necessary to advance and sustain that advantage.
To download full report, go to:
https://cset.georgetown.edu/publication/shaping-the-u-s-space-launch-market/
Book Review: Lunar: A History of the Moon in Myths, Maps, and Matter, Edited by Matthew Shindell; The University of Chicago Press; Hardcover/Cloth, 256 pages; $65.00.
This is a unique, beautiful, inspiring, and vital volume – a book to help the reader prepare for humankind’s reintroduction to on-location Moon exploration. As noted author Dava Sobel writes in her foreword, you will be consumed by how the Moon is portrayed here, “a black-and-white world rendered in a riot of gorgeous colours.”
Central to the book are superb cartographical charts of the Moon, coupled with masterful text that highlights our celestial neighbor’s role in popular myth, culture and science.
Between 1962 and 1974, US Geological Survey illustrator-cartographers painstakingly and systematically mapped the Moon, laying out a visual welcome mat for early, pioneering robotic craft and then followed by human explorers.
National Air and Space Museum curator Matthew Shindell has pulled together an impressive, fabulous volume, touching on the significance of the Moon from the Stone Age to today. The book contains well-written contributions from scholars that cover a wide array of over 30 topics, such as: “The Moon in Ancient Egyptian Creation Myths,” “Understanding the Phases of the Moon,” to “‘Moonstruck’ – Lunacy and the Full Moon” and “The Feminine Symbolism of the Moon,” as well as “The Moon in Silent Cinema, and “‘Selling’ the Moon in the 1950s.”
In Shindell’s introduction, he writes that the book demonstrates that “the Moon has been and remains connected to almost every facet of human life. While it is impossible to predict precisely what is to come in the long relationship between humans and the Moon, what is clear is that the Moon will forever live in the human heart.”
There are 500 color plates within the pages of this large format — 10-1/2 x 14-3/8 – book that includes a set of endnotes, a glossary, sources of illustrations and a further reading list.
Again, this is a treasure of a book and the reader will find this volume a prized resource as humanity returns to and “reboots” the Moon!
For more information on this book, go to:
https://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/L/bo240063025.html
On December 18, 2024, the U.S. Department of Defense publicly released its annual report, Military and Security Developments Involving the People’s Republic of China (PRC).
This annual report to Congress features a number of space-related activities underway by China, from use of space for military purposes, reusable rocketry and space planes, to deep space exploration.
This report covers security and military developments involving the PRC through early 2024.
The report can be found here at:
First the book…then the movie!
Just coming off that post-Thanksgiving spin?
Think about off-Earth alcohol consumption in space.
Yes, even in space you can hear the sound of a swizzle stick!
On October 11th, the Alcohol in Space movie had its premiere at the Explorers Club in New York City to a standing-room-only audience. Based on the book authored by Chris Carberry, Culture in Space Productions (CiSP) has released its first full-length documentary film now available on Amazon Prime.
Attending the Explorers Club premiere was Greg Olsen, the 3rd private civilian in space, a self-funded rocket sojourn in October 2005 to the International Space Station via a Russian Soyuz.
“The increased population of both non-orbital and orbital flyers will make this an ongoing experiment since many of them will have no crew duties and would be free to sample a drink or two,” Olsen explains. “Alcohol in Space is an interesting movie that discusses not only the possibility of it having already been used in space, but also what the effects of weightlessness might be on people who would consume it.”
The film features Kim Stanley Robinson (Novelist, Futurist), Jeffrey Manber (Founder and Chairman, Nanoracks), Samuel Coniglio (Space Futurist; Author, Creature Comforts in Space), Joe Cassady (Executive Vice President, Explore Mars; Space propulsion professional), as well as distilling and brewing specialists.
The film is directed by the creative Sam Burbank of Culture in Space Productions (CiSP). Next up is a movie based on Carberry’s book, The Music of Space: Scoring the Cosmos in Film and Television currently in preproduction.
Alcohol in Space is the first CiSP film that focuses on the expansion of human culture in space. CiSP has been established to tell the stories of the next wave of astronauts, innovators, and dreamers pushing to expand human culture into space.
As noted in a CiSP media statement, Alcohol in Space is the first of many films that will examine the expansion of human culture in space. CiSP will tell the stories of the next wave of astronauts, innovators, and dreamers pushing to expand human culture into space.
“While rockets and spaceships are essential to get there, a viable human civilization beyond Earth will require all human culture. This includes art, labor, literature, culinary arts, friendships, families, and of course a healthy dose of ‘sex, drugs, and rock and roll.’”
The release of the full-length documentary film, Alcohol in Space, is available on Amazon Prime. For more information, go to:
https://www.amazon.com/Alcohol-Space-Movie-Sam-Burbank/dp/B0DJQZGLG2
Also, go to the Culture in Space website to view a movie trailer at:
