New Moon Rising: The Making of America's New Space Vision and the Remaking of NASA: Apogee Books Space Series 42

by Frank Sietzen Jr. and Keith L. Cowing

Readers will gain the most comprehensive view available on what President Bush's new space vision will do for human exploration of the Solar System-and how nearly everything NASA does will change as a... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1894959124
• ISBN13: 9781894959124
• Release Date: July 2004
• Publisher: Collector's Guide Publishing
• Length: 280 Pages
• Weight: 1.50 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.0" x 7.1" x 10.0"

Customer Reviews

The Future Of Space Exploration

This is a very detailed and sometimes enlightening story of the people and events leading up to America's recent new space vision. Of course, as this book points out, the Columbia tragedy may have been a necessary precursor to this space vision, nevertheless it is long overdue and really should have begun after the Challenger accident. Sietzen and Cowing detail here the behind-the-scenes debates and decisions that may very well determine the course of the space agency over the next several decades, and perhaps longer. What has emerged is actually a blueprint for the long term migration of humans into the solar system, and not a brief quick dash to the moon as Apollo was, and it includes a mix of robotic scouting missions to pave the way for human expeditions. I have to give credit, after reading the book, to the Bush administration, and the members of the 'Splinter Group' who met in the basement of the White House to push for this new space policy, and as the authors write, these unidentified people are 'true spacers' who really believe in space exploration, and in my opinion are heroes, and there are also others mentioned in this book, some you would never expect. One of the things that is covered here is the debate behind the rationale of space exploration. In the past most people supporting space exploration stressed the practical benefits such as improved medicines and materials processing. While worthy goals in themselves, they may have been over-emphasized in the past. The new space visionaries claim, in an unabashed fashion, the real reason for space exploration, and that is for the sake of exploration in itself. Hooray for them. But this is also a tale of the managerial mistakes of our NASA, the cost over-run of the International Space Station, and of how, over the past 18 years or so, three launch systems were concieved, much money spent, and then cancelled. The era of NASA administrator Dan Goldin is well documented, and the efforts of administrator Sean O'Keefe are wrote about in much detail, with the new managerial style he brought to NASA recieving coverage of many pages here. Politics are important also, much of the book covers this as well. The new space vision is long term, of course, but the near term goals of Project Constellation are to develop the Crew Exploration Vehicle to replace the Space Shuttle (long overdue), conduct further robotic exploration of the solar system, use the space station as a test bed for human long term space flight, and sometime in the next decade return astronauts to the moon. A longer term goal is human exploration of Mars. All of this is progressive and exciting and as the authors state here, and almost everyone who supports space exploration agree, it is long overdue that we move out of low earth orbit and continue on to do what NASA is all about, exploration. This book is a masterpiece and should be read by everyone interested in NASA and our future in space.

Critidal Decision Time at NASA

I've long had a theory that you don't know what's going on in our Government until the books come out. And with all the recent news reports concentrating on Iraq and the election, any mention of the space program has been relegated to the very back pages, if it's there at all. This book presents a fly-on-the-wall approach to 16 months of NASA history - February 1, 2003 to June 2, 2004. This period may prove to be a most important turning point in NASA history. This is the time from the Columbia disaster to the release of the Presidential Commission report on Moon, Mars, and Beyond. One surprising point to me was the depth and detail to which George W. Bush himself was involved. Perhaps I'm wrong, but I just can't see Clinton getting involved in something like this. Bush chose a long time family friend to head up NASA with instruction to clean up NASA's act. A note says: This book was written with the full cooperation of MASA and the Bush administration, but has not been and will not be reviewed by them or pre-approved in any way. The book does praise the Bush administration and some people will say that it unfairly handles the previous one. In my mind, that's what books are for. Let these authors express their opinions. Let someone else praise the other guys. I'll then read both books and decide for myself. The book has it's own web site which promises updates to the book. I'd really like to hear what NASA and the administration are saying about Burt Rutan and Space Ship One. This project was done for something like $20 million. NASA couldn't have written the plans for that much. What are they really saying behind closed doors?

Fly on the Wall in the White House

I liked the fact that this book is one of the few in existence that actually reports on the inner workings, not only of NASA but of the White House itself and the Bush Administration. I was pleasantly surprised by how much input the President had in the whole process of the new space exploration initiative. People interested in whether or not this initiative actually happens need to read this book to ascertain how the decisions were made. All NASA employees should definitely read this.

A Unique Insight into the Making of Space Policy

This book reminds me of "The reluctant space-fares - The political and economic consequences of America's space effort", published in 1965 by Frank B. Gibney and George J. Feldman. In their book, Gibney and Feldman provide a valuable insight into the creation of NASA and the political fights that held back the space program. New Moon Rising provides similar insights, in that the authors were accorded unprecedented access to NASA personnel and what happened in meetings leading up to the making of the current space policy. The first few chapters provide an excellent overview of recent events in the space program and once we get to chapter 6, "In Search of a Mission", the reader begins to see how the new vision took shape. Step by step the reader is provided with a chronology of how we got to where we are today. This book provides and excellent insight into space policy formulation at the executive level and how NASA is being tasked to transform itself. Anyone who cares about the space program and the future of space exploration should read this book. Note: I am the business partner of Keith Cowing, one of the authors. So is my review objective? Yes it is. I know the authors, and in particular Keith, and I know the hours and effort that went into making this book. Both Keith and Frank are passionate and dedicated. One is democrat and the other a republican. Together they have written a valuable historical account of recent events.