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Book Reviews
M
ike Massimino is one of a few astronauts
who have gravitated towards the media
as part of an effort to explain space
exploration and humanise space
explorers in a way that almost never happened in
the 20th century. He has appeared in TV
documentaries, talk shows and popular science
programmes in the US and UK and has even played
himself in the science-based sitcom
The Big Bang
Theory
. His ‘day job’ as a NASA astronaut lasted
from 1996 to 2014 and he flew on two Shuttle
missions to the Hubble Space Telescope (as
reflected in the book’s subtitle).
This is the latest of several books by former
astronauts to bring space down to Earth and,
as he is only one of 500 to have been in space,
Massimino deserves a platform to explain his
experiences. He takes us on a very personal
journey from his impressions of the first Moon
landing, through his career as an astronaut, to the
time of his inevitable ‘grounding’.
After his last flight, he had a chance to go back
for a long-duration mission to the ISS but decided
against it: “I calculated the date of my return as the
week before Daniel would graduate from high school”,
he says. “I’d miss seeing Gabby off to college. I’d miss
everything. It wasn’t a hard decision to make”.
Massimino’s description of his emotions on
his return to Earth is honest, engaging and,
above all, understandable to ‘mere humans’. “I
was so grateful to be home alive”, he admits.
After seeing his family, he returned to the
crew quarters and found himself alone for the
first time in two weeks. “I had been around my
crewmates in close quarters, staying focused
on the mission, keeping my emotions in check”,
he says. “But there, alone in my room, I started
thinking about the journey I had taken, the
incredible beauty I had seen… and started to cry
uncontrollably”. Massimino’s release of pent up
emotions continued for 10 or 15 minutes as he
“let it all out”. “Then I pulled myself together”,
he says, “took a shower… put on my jeans, and
re-entered the Earth”. It might not be the ‘right
stuff’ to which we’ve all become accustomed, but
it’s certainly not the wrong stuff either. Good
one, Mike!
I
t has long been a mantra within
the space community that there
is money to be made in and
from space. It has already been
proved to some extent by the
communications satellite revolution but
writers have also predicted untold
wealth generation from more ambitious
applications such as solar power
satellites and asteroid mining. This,
effectively, is the message of this book
which, according to its publicity,
“captures the most exciting new
advances in harnessing space as a global
resource”. With reference to a common
legal phrase, it also “explores how all
people can share in the bounties of the
global commons of outer space”.
The book seeks to explain why the
gold rush of its title is different from
what has gone before and what it
might mean for “jobs, resources and
more”. It covers solar power and space
mining – but also delves into nascent
developments such as commercial space
transport and in-orbit servicing.
The author also looks at space
security and defence, and risk issues
such as orbital debris and cosmic
hazards. He then moves on to more
long-term space proposals including
space habitats and colonies before a
concluding chapter ‘Looking toward a
more hopeful global society’.
The author is, by his nature, an
optimist but he is realistic in warning
of the problems faced in achieving
the goals described. He also has his
‘finger on the pulse’ as far as world
affairs are concerned and even steals
a catchword from Donald Trump. The
idea, he says, is “not to make the USA
great again but to transform our global
economy and its worldwide human
services to make all Earthlings great”.
One of the key steps towards this, he
adds, is ensuring “the peaceful use of
outer space… for all humankind”.
The New Gold Rush: the Riches of Space Beckon!
Joseph N Pelton
Springer, 2017, 237pp, softback
€20.79,
ISBN 978-3-319-39272-1
Spaceman: an astronaut’s
unlikely journey to unlock
the secrets of the universe
Mike Massimino
Simon & Schuster, 2016, 316pp, hardback
£20.00,
ISBN 978-1-4711-4952-8
