This is not a NASA Website. You might learn something. It's YOUR space agency. Get involved. Take it back. Make it work - for YOU.
Commercialization

Book Review of "See You In Orbit? Our Dream of Spaceflight"

By Keith Cowing
NASA Watch
December 18, 2019
Filed under ,
Book Review of "See You In Orbit? Our Dream of Spaceflight"

Do you want to fly into space? Do you know someone who does? If so then this book is worth reading. “See You In Orbit? Our Dream of Spaceflight” by Alan Ladwig presents a comprehensive look by a space insider into the history of what space travel means to people. It details how individuals, space agencies, and companies have sought to give more people a chance to visit space.
In essence personal space travel has always been a factor in what we’ve done in space even if it was impractical. Efforts to expand the cadre of people going into space started before we even sent people into space and have continued ever since. Eventually some of these efforts caught on. To be certain there was always internal resistance as there was resistance from the outside as to who should go into space – and why. Now, nearly 3/4 of a century after we first threw things into space the dream of personally seeing space is as vibrant as ever. But now the ability to realize that dream is within the grasp of people who’d never have been offered a ride before.
Alas, this involves large sums of money and limits who gets to go. The eternal hope is that somehow this first generation of space tourists or spaceflight participants or commercial astronaut-passengers or whatever you want to call them will spur the development of more capabilities. In turn this surge of customer demand will somehow lead to a drop in the price of a ticket to space such that everyday citizens can anticipate a trip into space – for whatever reason propels them to do so. As to when that breakthrough happens, it seems to be getting closer than it has ever been but it is still illusively just out of reach.

I am a child of the early space age – the first generation to know of space travel as reality – not as fantasy. As described in Ladwig’s book we all peppered NASA with letters asking for a ride into space. I wrote NASA in grammar school. And again in high school. And yet again in college. Somehow I first met Alan ladwig (and Leonard David) in 1974 when they were running a non-profit called FASST that had some small grants to do some student-based space publications. I stayed in regular touch with Alan over the past half century as we both moved in and out of NASA and the private sector – always with space as our touchstone.
Eventually I ended up serving on the board of the Challenger Center for Space Science Education with Alan which was the completion of an arc of sorts – one that began when I was a young child who stayed home sick every single time a crew was launched into space. You see, on the day Challenger was lost I was a teacher and was preparing to go to teach a class and listened to the launch – and the loss – on the radio from my desk. Alan was part of these things all coming full circle for me.
Much of what Alan writes about has to do with NASA’s various education programs – whether it is flying student payloads in space – or flying teachers. In recent years the interest in education at NASA has come under attack from those who would eliminate the office that engages in student outreach and shift the funds elsewhere. Luckily wiser minds have prevailed – but this assault on NASA education efforts happens on an annual basis and the fight is becoming ever-harder to fight.
While NASA is not formally chartered to “inspire” – it does – sometimes in spite of NASA’s efforts to try and make the things that it does seem routine. NASA always has been inspirational and hopefully it always will be. The scope and breadth of the letters Alan talks about receiving over the decades certainly bears this out.
In reading this book I saw much that was familiar and a surprising amount that was not. I lived through these same times and events in the space community with Alan – as have many others. It’s nice to read a space book these days that actually teaches me something. For space people like Alan and I this dream of flying into space propelled us for decades. It may fade from time to time but it then comes back quickly. It is never extinguished. And if we find ourselves at a point in life when we realize that we may never reach space ourselves, it becomes incumbent upon us to help others do so – either in person or through their payloads – and then sniff the fumes of their rocket exhaust and experience space vicariously through them.
This book reveals one core theme of space exploration: despite the science, and policy directives, and all of the commercial hot air, it has always been about one singular thing: going there ourselves to see what it is like to be there. I am hoping that Alan will write a revised edition a decade hence wherein he talks about his own flight into space to see what it is like to be there.
If you are like Alan and I and year to fly into space then read this book. Who knows it might give you the right angle to convince someone to fly you into space. Wouldn’t that be cool.
In the mean time, I just want to know when I get to go. I only need 24 hours notice.

NASA Watch founder, Explorers Club Fellow, ex-NASA, Away Teams, Journalist, Space & Astrobiology, Lapsed climber.

10 responses to “Book Review of "See You In Orbit? Our Dream of Spaceflight"”

  1. TheBrett says:
    0
    0

    Definitely agree with that sentiment. It feels so close – if Virgin Galactic or Blue Origins can get their suborbital spacecraft going with passengers, and then scale up to more passengers and more reusability for cheaper tickets . . . . then it might be possible.

    I wonder if maybe the Jet Age gave us a wrong idea about all this. We all imagined personal space travel becoming as convenient and easy as jet travel – just get on the space plane at the airport, and there you go. But jet travel itself wasn’t exactly like taking ship travel when it came to pass.

    • Michael Spencer says:
      0
      0

      Can you expand a bit on the idea that somehow the road to space goes through suborbital?

      I can easily see a scenario in which these carnival* rides kill space enthusiasm, largely because they provide a very small and very poor subset of the orbital experience. And isn’t that what we all really want?

      * OK, perhaps ‘carnival rides’ is a bit harsh…

      • TheBrett says:
        0
        0

        I don’t think it necessarily leads to cheaper access to actual orbital space, as opposed to people just being able to go into space for brief periods on suborbital flights for fun and travel. But a lot of folks would consider that “going into space” even if you don’t make it into orbit – after all, they got to experience some weightlessness and see the Earth from space.

        • james w barnard says:
          0
          0

          The U.S.(and others) consider flying above the von Karman line (at least 50 miles or 62.5 miles/100km) qualifying for an astronaut badge. Until it becomes MUCH, MUCH cheaper for the general public to reach LEO and beyond, those who can afford the $250,000 ticket to suborbital space and who can have their space aspirations satisfied that way (which I can’t…even if I could pass the physical!), will do so, just as folks got their flying aspirations (or at least their curiosity) satisfied paying ten dollars at a country fair to some barnstormer.
          Ad Astra!

      • Bob Mahoney says:
        0
        0

        I suspect (but of course do not know) that sub-orbital won’t kill enthusiasm as much as simply see a short hurrah until orbital flight quickly passes it by. We shall see.

        I do have issues with some of your ‘We know…’ statements, mostly with what you seem to be suggesting by your use of the word ‘know’.

  2. Michael Spencer says:
    0
    0

    We aren’t there yet, but it’s not for lack of trying. We – a convenient collective pronoun meant to stand for ‘humankind’ – have experienced a fair amount of failure. Or have we?

    While many efforts have been characterized as failures in one way or another, truthfully each has moved the ball forward, sometimes with excruciatingly slow forward motion, or has established upper/lower bounds on costs and engineering.

    We know, now,

    • that a ‘space plane’ would be stunningly expensive and prone to heartache;
    • that relying on government to conquer space is likely to be forever disappointing;
    • that decades of largely governmental research has enabled private space access in previously unimagined ways;
    • that cunningly-designed space craft like Dragon can nonetheless blow up in unexpected ways, yielding a safer way forward;
    • that well-understood technology like COPV is perhaps not well-understood;
    • that simple-appearing “up and down” space rides are, perhaps, abandoned in favor of orbital efforts, which more costly will yield a far richer experience;
    • that too much allegiance to safety can – and will – hobble the efforts of an entire nation;
    • and — well, it’s now accepted as gospel that in situ use of resources represent the only way forward.

    While most of what I’ve listed above came at huge and sometimes tragic expense, the dream lives on.

    • ThomasLMatula says:
      0
      0

      Yes, space needs to be approached with the pioneer spirit again, which means private individuals taking risks that government isn’t able to take.

      • Michael Spencer says:
        0
        0

        You’ve expressed this view consistently, Professor. Does government have a role in your “weltsicht”? Would that function be primarily funding? If so, does money come with policy strings attached?

  3. Gerald Cecil says:
    0
    0

    One can dream that the ultimate use of Starship Mark XXX and ilk will be to lay cables for a space elevator. Only then could a non-negligible fraction of Earthlings access space. But much more of humanity will have to become comfortable on the ground for space access to alter consciousness. I don’t see either of these happening until world population has peaked then declined well below now, after fossil fuels have run their course and nuclear power has been implemented rationally.