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EDITORIAL INFORMATION

The next round in the space race won't be won 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! tells the stories of ten companies who are preparing for space travel. 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!

(Extracted from the press release).

GENERAL TABLE OF CONTENTS

-Contents.

-Part I. The Problem.

-1- NASA: "The Eagle Has Landed..." And Has Remained Stuck On the Ground.
-2- Why Go To Space At All?

-Part II. The Solutions.

-3- International Space Enterprises.
-4- LunaCorp.
-5- The Artemis Project.
-6- OUSPADEV.
-7- Kistler Aerospace Corporation.
-8- Hudson Engineering.
-9- Mars Direct.
-10- Forward Unlimited.
-11- The League of the New Worlds.
-12- The International Space Exploration and Colonization Company.
-13- Where Do We Go From There?

-Appendix: Businesses, Publications and Organizations.

-Index.

OUR REVIEW

B. Alexander Howerton used to be in charge of the space business column for the magazine Countdown (no longer being published nowadays), and he also was responsible for the newsletter Space Available. An expert connoisseur of everything having to do with the current public as well as private investments, he is perhaps a most adequate person to explain what the future of the commercial colonization of space will be. In order to do this, the author describes the efforts on the part of about ten private firms whose main objective is precisely this one, and he also makes us see how different the focus given to the problem by these is with respect to the traditional methods. Obviously, these are firms whose objective is to make money by travelling to space, and therefore, the scientific aspects are not their first priority. This fact perhaps makes them into the forerunners of the true revolution approaching us, the one that will allow for better investments in astronautics, which will reduce the costs and get more direct as well as indirect benefits in the long run. So as to achieve that, such firms are having to display a great deal of ingenuity and imagination: nothing is left out of their plans, from future trips to the Moon and Mars to reusable rockets and orbital stations.

Howerton describes the initiatives on the part of these firms as well as the perspectives of their possible success, both from a financial and a scientific/technical viewpoint very skilfully. Once the book - which happens to be a fast, satisfactory read, is finished, we have the feeling that the future is precisely to be found in the private enterprise, that there really are alternative ways to access space outside the usual rigid channels. The success or the failure of these adventures, some of which are already under way, will pave the road for more ambitious projects and maybe the massive arrival of capital coming from other sectors. Among the programs discussed in the text we find the Artemis Project, the Kistler launcher, the LunaCorp initiative and the travels by International Space Enterprises. Most of them intend to make their money profitable by favoring the commercial operation of their programs, something that not always can be achieved in the aerospace sector depending on the agencies.