Twenty years ago, as a young reporter, I trekked out to the Badlands Observatory in South Dakota. Ron Dyvig, an amateur astronomer, had built the facility to help NASA spot and track killer asteroids like the one that blotted out the dinosaurs. Dyvig welcomed me into the building and then cranked its dome open to the cold night sky to chill his telescope. Warm equipment, he explained, leads to blurry views by creating a thermal disturbance in the air. “That’s what causes the stars to twinkle at night,” he told me. “It’s great for romance, but it’s not very good for astronomy.”
Blue Oceans in Outer Space
The void beyond Earth has become an exciting frontier for entrepreneurial ventures. SpaceX, Blue Origin, and scads of other companies are pursuing commercial activities in outer space—launching rockets to send tourists to new heights, deploying satellites to collect data and improve terrestrial telecommunications and logistics, and developing novel space-driven products and services.
This article reviews three new books that will captivate readers who are curious about the booming industry growing up around space exploitation: When the Heavens Went on Sale: The Misfits and Geniuses Racing to Put Space Within Reach, by Ashlee Vance; The Space Economy: Capitalize on the Greatest Business Opportunity of Our Lifetime, by Chad Anderson; and A City on Mars: Can We Settle Space, Should We Settle Space, and Have We Really Thought This Through? by Kelly and Zach Weinersmith. The article identifies useful digital resources as well, including the podcast TerraWatch Space.