Posted on 07/30/2007 4:34:25 PM PDT by KevinDavis
There are reasons why "rocket science" is the quintessential hard thing to do. Last week's fatal explosion at Scaled Composites' desert test site, where the historic SpaceShipOne rocket plane was born, showed just how hard and tragic rocket science can be. Even SpaceShipOne's greatest successes came amid great risk - and that message comes through loud and clear in "Rocketeers," the fruit of more than three years of research, interviews and rocket tours by freelance journalist Michael Belfiore.
The book is subtitled "How a Visionary Band of Business Leaders, Engineers and Pilots Is Boldly Privatizing Space," and chronicles the work in progress on the frontiers of private-sector spaceflight. Belfiore journeys to rural Texas, where millionaire video-game developer John Carmack assembled a volunteer crew to build “vertical dragsters” from scratch … to the outskirts of Las Vegas, where real-estate billionaire Robert Bigelow has created his own factory to build inflatable spaceships … and most importantly to California’s Mojave Desert, where engineers and test pilots are trying to build the future of flight.
(Excerpt) Read more at cosmiclog.msnbc.msn.com ...
I like to use the phrase, “Hey! It’s not rocket surgery!”
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