The Space Tourist's Handbook

While the significant focus of the book is on orbital space toruism at $20 to $21 million a pop blast-off, (w/o spacewalk), Eric Anderson's book should become more relevant in late 2007 as testing of the commercial piloted suborbital vehicles will be tested above the Karmen Line. I enjoyed the book and commend it for reading by any one have the slightest interest in space affairs. The author should consider a new edition to be more inclusive of the more reasonably priced suborbital flights that hundreds, if not thousands, will purchase tickets to fly as the first decade ofthe 21st Century ends. The new FAA regulations effective in Februray should be reviewed and incorporated into the book and comparative analysis as to what regulations will be imposed in Singepore and the UAE as those commercial spaceports open on non-US regulated soil. But in all, I enjoyed the book, and cite it from time to time in research work writing in this area. It is effective and timely.

The Space Tourist's Handbook is another educational, spunky offering from the folks over at Quirk Books (publishers of The Worst Case Scenario Handbook). It provides a decent treatment of the history of space travel, including overviews of edge-of-space aircraft and sub-orbital and orbital vehicles. Potential space tourism destinations, from space stations to the Moon, are also covered. The meat of the book discusses training for space flight, recommended packing, the logistics of launch and space travel, and, finally, life in space. Like any good travel guide, space travel options are ranked by relative cost, training effort required, and mission time. It also offers a comprehensive index for quick reference purposes. Any engineer is going to know the majority of the information presented in this handbook, and anyone without an interest in space is going to be bored by it. The prime audience is students (and armchair enthusiasts) with an interest in science and engineering, who will no doubt glean both scientific facts and a healthy enthusiasm for the space industry.

In one of the most unique formats for such a book, the author has produced a highly educational and yet entertaining book on space travel. Written in a tourist handbook style, it starts with a series of vacation postcard style pictures including space pictures, vehicles, and training. From there you turn to the various potential space destinations. This section includes Spaceports you might leave from and destinations you might go to such as a space station or the moon. Now that you have picked your destination you have to choose how to get there. The next section of the book covers space vehicles and systems you might use, what to do when you get there and the approximate price. This section includes information on zero-gravity flights, sub-orbital flights, space shuttle flights, Soyuz flights, and even trans-lunar cruises. For each of them it shows the approximate cost range, training time, and mission time. Of course it includes a section on space flight training including the various exams you will have to pass, equipment training, physical training, etc. Typical of most foreign tourism books it even includes a section on space travel dos and don'ts, personal items to bring along, and even how to approach and dock with a space station. The section on life on the spacecraft includes how to do the common tasks you take for granted here on earth including how to sleep in zero gravity, how to spacewalk, eating, drinking, bathing, and even using the toilet. And, when you are done with the trip the tourist handbook ends with a section on the voyage home. This section includes information on things like reentry and landing. An innovative way to learn about the space industry and what an astronaut goes through, or what you will go through to become a space tourist, this is brilliantly done and a fascinating read. Scattered throughout the book are some tongue-in-cheek comments that just make it all the more entertaining. The Space Tourist's Handbook is highly entertaining and educational and as such a highly recommended read.

One of my favorite volumes in my collection of space-related books is a library discard titled "Your Trip Into Space." The book by Lynn Poole -- "Producer of The Johns Hopkins TV Science Review," the title page proudly proclaims -- was published in 1953, four years before the beep heard 'round the world ushered in the space age, and eight years before anyone would actually take their own trip into space. It's a fascinating piece both for what it got right, years before the U.S. would being serious work on putting a man into space, and for what it got wrong. Practically on the eve of Sputnik and then Gagarin, the book boldly pronounces, "No one can give you the precise time and exact date for departure. We are willing to take a chance on predicting that man will fly out into space within your lifetime, at least within fifty years." Emphasis theirs. Looking back from a little more than that half-century later, "Your Trip Into Space" really isn't of much use if you're actually planning your trip into space. But it is a captivating snapshot of the state of spaceflight -- and public perception thereof -- at that moment in time. Fast-forward now to the present, and a new book with a title that echoes the spirit of that half-century-old library discard, "The Space Tourist's Handbook." This book's bona fides are equally impressive, with the name on the spine belonging to Eric Anderson, president of tourism company Space Adventures. (The author credit beneath Anderson's name adds, "And Joshua Piven, co-author of The Worst-Case Scenario Survival Handbook.") To be honest, I wasn't entirely sure what to expect from the book when I first heard about it, and Piven's author credit did little to allay that. The success of his above-listed work has spawned a variety of imitators, how-to guides that promise the reader everything up to and including, literally, superpowers. I feared a book that might have some interesting information, but, in living up to its title, would fall as flat as those would-be Supermen. On the flip side, there was also the possibility that it would go the other way, serving as nothing more than a 192-page brochure for Space Adventures. The book's similarity to its spiritual forebear was pleasantly surprising. Like the earlier book, "The Space Tourist's Handbook" uses the conceit of preparing you for "your trip into space" to present a surprisingly complete picture of the state of human spaceflight at this particular moment in time. From the space shuttle to Soyuz to SpaceShipOne to Shenzhou (and many other things that don't start with S), the book provides an overview of all the major elements of spaceflight in 2005. A person who knew nothing about current events in space could pick up the book and in a couple of hours be relatively conversant about what's going on today. And for the reader taking the book off the shelf as far into the future as "Your Trip Into Space" is into the past would get an excellent idea of what was going on