SPACE TOURISM

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Sunday, July 26, 2009

HOW TO BUILD YOUR OWN SPACESHIP

By Piers Bizony

Plume. 224 pp. Paperback, $15

If 'N Sync singer Lance Bass almost became a space tourist, why can't you? Piers Bizony, a pop-science vet who's written about Mars and the tyrannical 1960s NASA administrator James E. Webb, draws a user-friendly map of the shifting terrain of post-Apollo, post-Challenger space travel in "How to Build Your Own Spaceship."

The first chapter of private space travel is already being written, wherein entrepreneurs will launch themselves and others into space. The pioneers are mostly uber-rich, such as Amazon founder Jeff Bezos (who's building a reusable spaceship) and Budget America hotel magnate Robert Bigelow (who has successfully tested an unmanned, orbiting suite). Bizony believes that you, the uninitiated reader, can "come up with a business scheme that can actually make space profitable," and he takes you deep into what's needed. But his lesson plan soon collapses under the weight of discussions of SSTO spacecraft, LOX vs. hypergolic fuels and, well, rocket science. Even though the unwashed masses with bank accounts under nine figures may not become aeronautical big boys in the way Bizony envisions, they can at least read about the final frontier in a book that sparkles with unquenchable enthusiasm.

-- Justin Moyer

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