Lost in Space

Zusatztext 77557179 Informationen zum Autor Greg Klerkx Klappentext The daring! revolutionary NASA that sent Neil Armstrong to the moon has lost its meteoric vision! says journalist and space enthusiast Greg Klerkx. NASA! he contends! has devolved from a pioneer of space exploration into a factionalized bureaucracy focused primarily on its own survival. And as a result! humans haven't ventured beyond Earth orbit for three decades. Klerkx argues that after its wildly successful Apollo program! NASA clung fiercely to the spotlight by creating a government-sheltered monopoly with a few Big Aerospace companies. Although committed in theory to supporting commercial spaceflight! in practice it smothered vital private-sector innovation. In striking descriptions of space milestones spanning the golden 1960s Space Age and the 2003 Columbia tragedy! Klerkx exposes the "real NASA and envisions exciting public-private cooperation that could send humans back to the moon and beyond. Chapter 1 The Price of "Peace" Our twin-prop Brasilia leapt off the runway like a startled bird, the turbocharged engines groaning as they struggled to pull the plane upward through the steamy funk that passes for air in the late-summer tropics. We had only a few seconds to watch the Fijian capital city of Suva-a hodgepodge of tin-roofed jungle, architectural brutalism-melt from view like a hazy ghost town. Then the world outside went white, and we became part of the clouds. In the low-pressure turbulence the Brasilia popped and bobbed like a bathtub toy, but we sat in contented silence, happy to be airborne. It had been raining all day, sometimes in scattered wisps of mist, more often in pounding sheets of practically solid liquid. Our group, about thirty in all, had traveled for nearly three hours by bus from our base outside of the town of Nadi, a creaky tourist trap on the rounded curve of Fiji's southwest side. The rain had made for slow, treacherous driving on the island's snaking roads, which seemed to be losing the battle against the jungle's tireless campaign to reclaim them. In the end, the roads and the jungle had cost us time, a commodity we had only in the sparest quantity. Nevertheless, here we were. We had traveled from all over the world and spent an anxious week in Fiji for a chance at witnessing two hundred seconds of history. As our plane roared through the late afternoon sky, none of us were thinking about the hoops we'd jumped through to shoehorn ourselves into a small plane buzzing southeast toward what one member of our group had dubbed the loneliest place on the planet. Instead, we were thinking about Mir. The Brasilia was on course to a position where we could observe the aging Russian space station as it plummeted from the sky. For more than two years, space engineers around the world had done computer modeling and other scientific soothsaying to anticipate what Mir would do when it plowed into the upper atmosphere at seven times the speed of sound. As we took off from Suva that afternoon, there was general agreement that the models and predictions amounted to a collective shrug: Mir was a 140-ton Tinkertoy the size of a jumbo jet, massive and unpredictable. It was more than twice as large as the second-largest man-made object ever to return to Earth, the American Skylab space station, which in 1979 had skipped down from orbit slightly askew and accidentally rained debris across the Australian outback, mercifully scarring nothing but the landscape. Still, even Skylab offered only a limited precedent to Mir's reentry. The only certainty was that once Mir reached an altitude of about 130 miles above the Earth there would be no turning back. Mir would come home. We were to fly parallel to a rectangular swath of ocean that stretched southeast from Fiji roughly toward Argentina. This was to be Mir's "debris footprint," a mostly empty patch of...

"A penetrating indictment . . . an absorbing jeremiad for those who . . . look beyond the PR shots of jubilant Jet Propulsion Laboratory scientists.” —*Newsweek

• “A battle cry for the alternative space programÉan engaging counterpoint to the can-do rhetoric headed our way via . . . NASA officials.” —San Francisco Chronicle

“A clear-eyed analysis . . .with vivid examples.” —The Wall Street Journal

“Thoughtful and . . . informational. . . . It is clear that [Klerkx] has done a great deal of research and knowsÉa lot about efforts at space travel and exploration as well as its finance and politics.” —Los Angeles Times

"Compelling. . . . Essential reading." --Buzz Aldrin

“Readable and smart. . . . A summary of all the things that happened while the rest of us weren’t paying attention. . . . . [Bush said] America should return to the moon. . . . After reading this history of America’s space agency, one might be inclined to take NASA off the job.” --*Charleston Post & Courier

• "Informative, passionate. . . . Klerkx excoriates NASA relentlessly, effectively." --*The Guardian
• "An important book that provides a context for understanding the decline of NASA and the rise of the alternative space community." --The San Diego Union-Tribune

“Fascinating. . . . Raises points that should be included in any debate on the issue.” --The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

• "A very sound and readable analysis of the cause and cure of the present malaise in this planet's space programme. . . . Klerkx backs up his analysis with compelling evidence and insight." --*The Times Literary Supplement (London)

"A must-read for space enthusiasts who may be interested in being part of the future revolution in affordable space access. Greg Klerkx has gathered a wealth of historical information, old and recent, and presents it in a readable story that is hard to put down." --Burt Rutan, aircraft and spacecraft developer

“Convincing. . . . [An] eleg[y] to human space travel.” --The New York Sun

"A clear, informed and poignant analysis of how the space agency lost its way. . . . Klerkx's report could not be more timely." --Keay Davidson, author of Carl Sagan: A Life*

• "Lost in Space **is a must-read. . . . Klerkx presents a masterful argument on why the space program is in a deep rut and what needs to happen to get out of it. . . . He offers a healthy outside perspective when it is sorely needed." --*Dayton Beach News Journal
• "This lively, well-reported, and unapologetic work will give new hope to anyone who's clung to the dream of human spaceflight during the three long decades since the last Apollo mission." --Thomas Mallon, author of Aurora 7 and Two Moons*
• “Passionate. . . . Provocative. . . . Important.” --*Sci Fi
• “Those working on changing NASA need to review this book if they want to avoid repeating the mistakes of the past.” --The Huntsville Times

"Excellent. . . . You can't sit on the fence after reading this book. . . . If you want to know where NASA has gone wrong or of the many ideas that people have been and are expounding for space access, Lost in Space **is the book." --*Universe Today

• "Klerkx documents how [NASA] stamped on every form of external competition. . . . One reads with the certain conviction that this had to be said." --*New Statesman
• “Well-researched. . . . Klerkx provides ample evidence and maddening examples of NASA’s ‘fractitious bureaucracy.'” --*East Bay Express
• "Fascinating. . . . Klerkx backs up [his] argument with extensive research. . . . A very interesting book." --The Space Review

Auteur

Greg Klerkx

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The daring, revolutionary NASA that sent Neil Armstrong to the moon has lost its meteoric vision, says journalist and space enthusiast Greg Klerkx.…