Jeff Foust has a good roundup of the current state of play in industry/congressional skepticism about the ability of the new players to do the job.
And Tom Frieling describes an appallingly bad book on space history. This kind of thing is really inexcusable, and may feed ignorance for years. When I do my pieces for The New Atlantis, I circulate drafts among a lot of knowledgeable people, to make sure that I get it right. If I write a book, I’ll do the same thing. But I guess that kind of thing isn’t very important to some authors and publishers.
…can commercial providers safely transport crews to and from low Earth orbit
Atlas, Delta, Falcon… not yet, but they will. The pressure on SpaceX is overblown on the first F9. They have two more in the bullpen. The first crew F9 is the one that has to go well.
…can they do so on a truly commercial basis?
Only if they have orbital destinations…
Bigelow Aerospace has been developing plans for commercial orbital habitats, primarily to serve not tourists but commercial research customers as well as “sovereign clients”, countries without indigenous human spaceflight capabilities
I worry that Bigelow seems to be working on these markets alone and wish they had some competition. But I’m encouraged that it’s not just space hotels. I suspect that I.S.S. will continue to be a paying customer for longer than some expect.
While Rocketmen sounds like flawed history, it can not compete with the “fantasy as history” creation that is “Dark Mission”. If anything in that book even gets within a light year of reality, I’d be surprised.
I remember the author being interviewed on a local radio show last summer when Rocket Men was first published. The host was a bit of a space fan, but not enough to miss a couple of howlers. Wish I could remember the specifics, but the context was Gemini. At the time I recall thinking, “either he’s wrong, or every other book I’ve read on this subject was wrong”.
Saw it in the remainder bin at B & N last week and was tempted for about 2 seconds; glad I saved the five bucks.
And I thought “Light This Candle” was bad, “Rocket Men” sounds atrocious.