They All Laughed at Christopher Columbus: An Incurable Dreamer Builds the First Civilian Spaceship

This book isn't about technical accuracy. It's about how a quixotic technologist deals with the cumulative weight of a life of failure. From steamships to cars to airplanes, the early days of invention were never pretty. Crackpots abounded. Failed companies littered the landscape. Even today, technical failure is more of a fact of life than ever. But now it's less visible to non-specialists outside the corporate and university laboratory establishment. The rocketeers in Weil's book stand out like throwbacks to that earlier time because they have chosen to work outside the mainstream research community. They live in the shadow of NASA, the decabillion-dollar government agency that pretends to own outer space. The fact that NASA has failed to make space cheaper or safer in nearly 50 years invites entrepreneurial ambition---but not necessarily talent. Weil's book follows the most driven of modern rocket crackpots on their painful journey from dreams to failure. She does not share their dreams; indeed, what draws her is an almost ghoulish attraction to their experience of tragedy. Was her bitter, sometimes cruel depiction of Hudson et al the only way she could think of to distance herself from their pain? Who knows! In any case, it's a vivid, cautionary tale. Bitter medicine indeed for any dreamer who is tempted to turn away from reality and throw a party, as Rotary did, when things got tough.

I thought that this was a fun read. I have met many of the people in the book, and I have always wondered why they kept working on the rocket after they gave up on the engine, and this book explains it all. (Walt kept giving them money) Some of Gary's associates have complained that the author has treated him harshly, but I have heard much worse about him from others. Also some people have complained about the technical errors, but this is not a technical book. This book was entertaining, and a little scary for me, because I have a rocket problem as well.

There seem to be two reactions to this book: pro-space activists think it's trash, while the normal people who seemingly read it by accident all love it. Here's a third perspective: I strongly believe that we need cheap, reusable, privately owned launch vehicles like the one Rotary Rocket tried to develop. But I love this book because it reveals exactly why none of the many Mom & Pop rocket companies have ever produced one. The main problem is that the people who are strongly motivated to start such firms are mostly impractical dreamers who lack the technical skills and business sense to make them work. Reading Weil's dispassionate description of the Roton development program is like watching the film "Ed Wood" -- you can't believe that these people actually existed and actually believed they were building a workable rocketship. The sane part of the space community always knew that the Roton would be a miserable technical failure for all the reasons given on p.167, but it is really scary to see just how out of touch with reality the major players like Gary Hudson and Walt Anderson really were. And these guys are still active in the alt.space community! I sure hope Elon Musk's SpaceX project succeeds so we don't have to watch any more of these painful failures.

I just think Weil is a really good writer. I didn't know what to expect when I picked up the book, but it really engaged me. the story feels both big -- about american's specific capacity to dream -- and intimate. We get to know and sympathize with a specific group of characters. If you want a good read, this is great -- swift and smart.

Some people look at that famous picture of the Earth taken from orbit and see their blue-green home. Others are drawn to the blackness around the periphery. This book is about those other people; the ones who as boys "started wearing their mothers' punch bowls like space helmets" and to this day wonder why the hell it is taking so long to build moon colonies. Elizabeth Weil follows one of these men, Gary Hudson, who has raised millions of dollars to try to build the first civilian spaceship. Hudson has faith, a hell of a sales pitch, and a sizeable following. There are test pilots, an engineer who likes to blow things up and a group who host an annual Passover-style seder to celebrate the eventual freedom of humans from the bonds of gravity. In a sense they do have the right stuff. "When did you first want to leave earth?" Weil asks one. "What made you first want to breathe?" he replies. The story is beautifully written. It's probably the first honest book about the hangover from the glory days of the Apollo missions. In other ways of course, it's not about space at all. In all, a gem and a great read.David KestenbaumScience CorrespondentNational Public Radio