Rocketeers: How a Visionary Band of Business Leaders, Engineers, and Pilots is Boldly Privatizing Space

Rocketeers: How a Visionary Band of Business Leaders, Engineers, and Pilots is Boldly Privatizing Space
Michael Belfiore | 2008-08-01 00:00:00 | Harper Paperbacks | 320 | Transportation

On June 21, 2004, SpaceShipOne, built by aircraft designer Burt Rutan, entered space and ushered in the commercial space age. Investment capital began to pour into the new commercial spaceflight industry. Richard Branson's VirginGalactic will begin ferrying space tourists out of the atmosphere in 2010. Las Vegas hotelier Robert Bigelow is developing the world's first commercial space station (i.e., space hotel). These space entrepreneurs, including Microsoft cofounder Paul Allen and Amazon.com founder Jeff Bezos, now see space as the next big thing.

In Rocketeers, Michael Belfiore goes behind the scenes of this nascent industry, capturing its wild-west, anything-goes flavor. Likening his research to "hanging out in the Wright brothers' barn," Belfiore offers an inspiring and entertaining look at the people who are not afraid to make their bold dreams a reality.

Reviews
I found the book informative and the topic definitely interesting, but the way the story is told leaves me with an oddly disjointed feeling which I suppose reflects the state of the private space industry. There is no denying the author's interest and enthusiasm, but the book tries to navigate a middle path between detail and characters, and ends up slighting both.




Reviews
This book is a rather basic introduction to NewSpace ideas and people. Private space flight is an exciting subject and if you are new to it, you will probably enjoy the book. Covered in some depth are: the history of XPrize and Peter Diamandis, SpaceShipOne / Scaled Composites / Burt Rutan, Richard Branson / Virgin Galactic, NASA and private spaceflight, SpaceX / Falcon / Elon Musk, Rocketplane, XCOR, Bigelow's orbital hotels, commercial spaceports. However, the author seems to be more interested in telling amusing stories ("...Suddenly Burt Rutan was wide awake, staring into the blackness of his bedroom ceiling. Out of the blackness came a spaceship in free fall... "I've got it" he said aloud...") than in the technical/scientific aspects of spaceflight. It was also disappointing to me that there are very few pictures in the book and those present are not very relevant (e.g. I'd prefer a cross-section drawing of a hybrid rocket motor to the photo of Tim Pickens riding his rocket bicycle). The book was written in 2007, so naturally you won't find there any of the newest advances in the field: the Lunar Landing Challenge (and its participants), the Space Elevator games, the first successful flight of SpaceX's Falcon 1, SpaceX's Dragon capsule, Google's Lunar Challenge. You will find much more detailed and up-to-date information just reading various NewSpace-related news sites, blogs and Wikipedia articles.
Reviews
As someone who works for one of the companies highlighted in "Rockeeteers" I find that it's not always easy explaining what we are doing to privatize Space. Michael has accurately captured the entire New Space Industry with this book. The following sentences sum up the efforts of those of us working in this field, "I could think of few things more satisfying in an uncertain world than the whoosh-BOOM! of an igniting rocket engine pouring out enough power to hurl a payload into outer space. In sharp contrast to so much of life, no hedging, equivocating, or hand-waving was possible. Rocket engineering worked or it didn't, and the mere talkers go separated from the doers in that split second between spark and fire." I frequently reference Michael's book whenever I need to portray what we do in brief.
Reviews
Michael's overview provides a sound foundation on the beginnings of the NewSpace movement. Required reading for anyone that dreams of space exploration!
Reviews

Rocketeers provides a quick introduction to the people making the current boom in private space flight happen. It is a well written book that covers the people involved in an accessible way. The advent of private space flight that may be available to ordinary people makes this an exciting time for anyone interested in space.



The author is a journalist and writer, not an engineer or technologist. This shows in the writing of Rocketeers. It is a smooth flowing easy read that focuses on personalities with only the briefest mention of the technology involved and little discussion of the economics. This makes the book entertaining and approachable, but it leaves much of the story untold. I would have liked to read more about the competing technologies and how the different companies have chosen them. The whole topic of whether these companies can possibly be economically viable is not really examined at all. That left the book feeling a little light weight to me.



Rocketeers does succeed in providing a snap shot of an interesting time. Its broad overview and focus on the personalities will be helpful to readers who have not been following these events.

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