Life Among Asteroids

Jerry Pournelle has put together a first class collection of stories about life in the Asteroids, ranging from a Inner Solar System space craft involved in the rescue of a stray passenger ship travelling from Earth to Pallas to the defence of a mining colony from a rouge missile set off by the Earth Governments.The collection of essays include contributions from noted authors such as Poul Anderson, Charles Sheffield and Pournelle himself. Anderson probably puts foward the best short story of all.Between each chapter, Pournelle explores various concepts such as how travel within the solar system might be achieved, the profitability of mining asteroids, and perhaps most importantly, why NASA has failed so miserably.The stories are enjoyable, however, it is the sytsematic way in which Pournelle has examined and exposed the failings of NASA that makes this book such a worthwhile read. I found myself utterly disgusted with some of the things that Pournelle has accused NASA of doing.For example he cites that since the last luna landing $250 Billion has been spent by NASA. For this money it has achieved 4 space shuttles that go up, down and that is it, launched a few interplanetary probes and that is about it.He proposes his own solutions and makes his own suggestions as to what should be done to fix this. If you are interested in space travel, especially involving privately funded ventures, this book is thoroughly worthwhile. If you like good science fiction, again, it is a 5 Star Read.