Space: The Free-Market Frontier

Compiled and edited by Edward L. Hudgins (Washington Director of The Objectivist Center), Space: The Free-Market Frontier is a straightforward look at the interest private entrepreneurs who have had an increasingly important role in accessing the "final frontier" of outer space. The writings constituting Space: The Free-Market Frontier derive from educated and knowledgeable contributors concerned with the practical issues for creating forms of space transportation, the legalities of private activities in outer space, commerce in outer space, and more. Space: The Free-Market Frontier is an involving, informative, highly recommended look at the intersection of economic and technological possibilities in space exploration for the private sector.

A review of Space the Free Market FrontierAlthough the Cato Institute, the publisher of this book, did not misrepresent its contents, I was expecting something different. I was hoping for more of a "future of space science" tome so that I could find out more about the specific space technologies which will ultimately work. (The shuttle program obviously has serious problems). What I found instead was a collection of scholarly essays, mostly centering on the economics of the issue, to be read by congressmen and policy wonks. There is nothing wrong with that, of course. But personally, I would have preferred something more in line with G. Harry Stine's book, Halfway to Anywhere: Achieving America's Destiny in Space, or at least an essay or two picking up where Stine left off in 1996. I'm especially interested in knowing more about the state of the art of single stage to orbit (SSTO) technology. I didn't find much along that line. What I did find, however, and what made the book more than worth the purchase price was a lucid essay by Dennis A. Tito, the American Businessman who paid his own way to fulfil his lifelong dream of going into space. It was a colorful, competent, and descriptive view of what it would be like for a regular person to go into space. Having been rebuffed by NASA, he went to the Russians who cordially welcomed him, trained him for his "mission," and gave him a very expensive vacation aboard the Russian section of the under construction International Space Station (ISS). Tito's experiences and his vision for the future of space exploration were inspirational and uplifting in the wake of the Columbia Shuttle disaster. NASA tried to scuttle Tito's adventure, and that same massive bureaucracy has probably succeeded in scuttling the shuttle program. The solution seems clear to me; we need more free enterprise. Follow the model used in the development of aviation in the 20th century. If you agree with that statement, buy this book.