Free Space!; Real Alternatives for Reaching Outer Space

Dan Wend (Cover Design) Port Townsend, WA: Loompanics Unlimited, 1994. Presumed First Edition, First printing. Trade paperback. [6], 144, [8] pages. Illustrations (some with color). Notes. Index. Cover has slight wear and soiling. The author argues that the way to encourage the exploration of space is to privatize it, and profiles some of the profit-seeking companies that are already active. Nearly a quarter century ago he forecast that the next round in the space race won't be run by NASA. This time, it will be private companies building space stations and shooting payloads to the planets. Science fiction, you say? Take another look. Free Space! opens with an explosive critique of NASA ­p; the government behemoth that put a man on the Moon and has been grounded ever since. Listen in as the author grills the head of NASA at a press conference. Howerton then poignantly pens a new Manifest Destiny for colonizing outer space. The second half of Free Space! contains capsule descriptions of ten companies that are preparing for space travel today. Run by NASA/aerospace alumni, they have the know-how and the money to make it real. Find out how they'll open the heavens to commercial travel in the coming decade. B. Alexander Howerton is the editor of Space Available, the newsletter for investors in space -related stocks. He interviewed all of the principal players in these companies. Free Space! contains private communications, rare illustrations and photos not available anywhere else. The author wrote: " I am endlessly fascinated by the depth of human experience, both into the deep past and the far future. It is so easy to look myopically at our current condition and conclude we are doomed as a culture and a species. But that is actually a good thing. It is a survival trait ingrained in us through millennia of surviving. The blissful carefree people walked off the edge of the cliff, or didn't run early enough from the tiger, and didn't get to reproduce. But life is nevertheless worth living, and my books explore the multi-millennial span of the human condition. My earlier books Free Space and Project Avalon look forward into a hopeful future. My more recent books The Wyrding Stone and Gravettian Goddess gaze back into the 40,000-year history and culture of modern humans, to explore the timeless themes that are still relevant and important to us in this present day. I believe, far from imagining ourselves at the pinnacle of evolution and history, that we should cultivate an attitude of stewardship, taking the rich cultural gifts passed to us by our ancestors, nurturing them, and bestowing them upon our progeny. the more we can develop this attitude, the better our chances for long-term survival, and thriving as we reach out into the cosmos. To further these aims, I participate with The Overview Institute and the Space Frontier Foundation. Condition: Very good.

Keywords: NASA, International Space Enterprises, Artemis Project, OUSPADEV, Dennis Chamberland, Hudson Engineering, League of New Worlds, International Space Exploration and Colonization Company, ISECCo, Robert Zubrin

ISBN: 1559501200

[Book #73741]

Price: $75.00

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