Rating: 
Summary: This is a book about BUSINESS in Space
Review: As an interested observer since the early 1960s, I found this to be well-thought out and insightful. There have been plenty of problems in space in recent years, but this book shows that with the proper business acumen, we could make "near-space" business a reality. They're already doing "business" on the space station--there's no reason to believe that private enterprise couldn't do it as well. Especially companies like Boeing and Lockheed, which (according to this book) have a huge stake in making space work.And there's nary a word in here about Space.com or CNN, so there's no self-aggrandizing on the part of Dobbs (or Newquist). Good for them that they've kept the focus on space as an industry and not personal projects.
Rating: 
Summary: Wake Up Lou
Review: It is very ironic that outsourceing to China, the only hope for a boom in the satellite launching business, is repeatedly and heavily criticized by Lou Dobbs's Moneyline on CNN. I see no alternative when the Chinese can do it cheaply and safely while our own space program is not going anywhere. Lou, watch the news as the Chinese send a man to space later this week. And if this doesn't open your eyes, talk to executives at Boeing and ask them what they think of your views. And I haven't even mentioned the numerous technical errors in this book which have been covered clearly and hilariously by somebody else.
Rating:
Summary: This book is junk
Review: Lou Dobbs is a national embarrassment. He obviously doesn't know how to think straight, as this book clearly shows. It is totally unrealistic. Space is not the next business frontier unless we are willing to hand over the satellite launch business and space tourism business to the low-cost and reliable Chinese. And that's something Dobbs does not realize in his wildest fantasy. This guy has zero imagination and clearly doesn't know how to make money. I wish I could give it zero star as it doesn't deserve any. The author of this book belongs in a lunatic asylum.
Rating:
Summary: This book is junk
Review: Lou does not have the wits to realize that China is the only hope for future space business. Otherwise his scheme is totally out of this world. Save your money - don't buy this book.
Rating:
Summary: China: the Next Hope for Space
Review: Lou does not have the wits to realize that China is the only hope for future space business. Otherwise his scheme is totally out of this world. Save your money - don't buy this book.
Rating: 
Summary: Math Is Not This Tome's Strong Suit!
Review: Math is not among the strong suits in this otherwise readable and informative narrative. For instance, the "Plunkett Research" group is quoted for this astounding nugget: World commercial space market is guess-timated to be worth $100 billion per year where "three quarters" (sic.) is in the US (more like three-fifths at $60 billion per year). I'd like to see the source documentation and methodology used to come up with those figures. The Plunkett organization must have added revenues from launch booster sales, range fees, telemetry up- and down-link rentals, long-haul communication links & microchip manufacturing & research costs (for the entire commercial and military space sectors) to arrive at a figure that high. Further, whle a new volume cannot keep up with "breaking news" at the speed of a CNN or <space.com> entity, I would like to nominate a start-up business #101 for Mr. Dobbs' next edition: X-COR Aerospace of Mojave, California -- whose Chief Test Pilot for multiple test flights before and after showing the vehicle at the EAA Oshkosh, Wisconsin event is famed aviator Dick Rutan, of the highly successful "Voyager" non-stop, unrefueled record flight some years ago. Lou Dobbs has given his countless loyal fans and readers, however, a highly readable tome -- worthy of seasonal holiday gift purchases or for your own personal or professonal libraries. "SPACE: The Next Business Frotnier" fills a needed void in the current literature -- which can drive any concerned or interested porfessional up-the-wall -- attempting to keep track of minute developments which pop-up on multiple web sites. Further, I wish the US Space Foundation (of Colorado Springs, CO)_ would revisit its 'policy' of not issuing "Press Releases" during events such as their "International Space Symposium" in Washington, DC (October 29 - 31, 2001) where Mr. Dobbs was a panel chair on commercial space issues! Certain the US Space FOundation could not have found a person better informed nor qualified to fill that key chair at that prestigious gathering than Mr. Dobbs himself!
Rating:
Summary: Unrealistic
Review: Mr. Dobbs's personal interest in space is genuine. So is mine. But to claim that space and business are on the verge of an explosive boom - well, that was over-optimistic even before the Columbia disaster. Now it looks as unlikely as ever.........unless of course American companies are willing to out-source satellite-launching to foreign countries like China, at a fraction of the cost in the US. That's the only hope for a boom in space-related businesses, and the more down-to-Earth solution.
A handful of super-rich space-tourists willing to risk their lives on a Russian rocket are simply not enough to make an industry. Besides, manned spaceflight is now on indefinite hold in the US, which renders space tourism stillborn, at least in the US. Mr. Dobbs ought to plant his feet firmly in the ground of reality and make a choice at some point which scenario he prefers. The premises of this book are at best premature - at worst totally unrealistic.
Rating: 
Summary: Star journalist or high school slacker?
Review: My excitement at a major new rally to space by a high-profile journalist turned largely to chagrin upon reading this effort, which reads more like a transcript of a spoken-word broadcast than a book, with enough five-second sound bytes to make any CNN anchor envious. Steel yourself to go beyond thickets of breathless hyperbole into really careless errors, such as alternately referring to "Lockheed Titans" (correctly of course) and "Boeing Titans" (say what?) This is more than embarrassing; to see such glaring errors where I know a little about what he's talking about causes me to doubt all the seemingly useful information in areas unfamiliar to me. I can't escape knowing that the book's facts are sloppily researched and undependable. (It also gives me one more reason to wonder about the sentience behind CNN's financial reporting, of which Dobbs was apparently the architect - I'll stick to the Economist magazine.) The book's flaws extend further, with analysis as flawed as the facts. The predictions of developing technology are about as authoritative as if someone read Michio Kaku's "Visions" last summer and is now trying to summarize it to you after a handful of martinis. Think I'm exaggerating? See page 204, for this steeltrap analysis of mining asteroids: "While the robot miners themselves would have to be durable and sturdy, the relative lack of gravity on asteroids might make the actual removal and transport of heavy metals a relatively easy process." Might be relatively easy? He couldn't say something like, it would be a tremendously difficult and complex feat of engineering, but would have the great advantage of a miniscule escape speed? If you're still not sure, see page 212 for this stunningly unintelligent hot air: "Although a vehicle that can essentially use air as a form of propellant would seem to be the ultimate spacecraft, it does have its limitations, most notably in space where there is no air." FEEL THE BURN!!! All he's talking about there is air-breathing combustion engines, as space-age as a Ford Model T, which of course are the ultimately WRONG engines to use in the vacuum of space - but he phrases it as if that is a small technical detail. This would feel dumb even relative to the average letter to the editor of "Popular Science." I can only give Dobbs the benefit of the doubt that he handed off a bunch of half-organized notes to the small-print-listed career shadow writer to assemble into what was supposed to be a coherent book form, and by the time Dobbs saw the finished product, it had already gone to press. So why was I generous enough to give two stars? There is still some interesting information in here, even assuming it is reliable and even if it must be weedled out from among the fluff, which is painful enough to read like AOL Time Warner is experimenting with content-writing software in place of awkward, more expensive human writers. The history of Rene Anselmo's PanAmSat as a renegade startup that now earns a billion dollars a year on GM's behalf is a great example of the tasty tidbits of actual information on space business. Most of the book, though, is a regurgitation of speculations on the future of space business, as if someone decided the world needed a cliff's notes of Gerard O'Neill. Just about all the book's material is covered elsewhere with much more clarity and understanding - the majority is covered with a thousand times more intelligent analysis in the first few chapters of Robert Zubrin's "Entering Space: Creating a Space-Faring Civilization." In fact, the book co-opts so much previous material in such a dead-on rehash, with so little source documentation, that the book at least borders on plagiarism. (You know when a source does happen to be documented by the humorously dramatic appearance of the word "Source" in parentheses; apparently looking up a standard reference convention in MLA or the Chicago Manual of Style were also beyond the scope of this book, as is any kind of index. Of the sources that are given, most are merely to web sites, another telling testament to the book's research ethic.) Still, hopefully Dobbs' huge mug on the cover - even grainy and slightly out-of-focus as it is - will draw a new cross-section of society into the dialogue on the human future in space. And fleeting through the first half or so of this book is a rational projection of the economic potential of space and an indictment of the bureaucratic domination of the aerospace industry that has stifled progress in the past few decades. I sincerely hope a more responsible commentater takes up the task in the next year or two of releasing the book this should have been. Until then, unless you feel the subject matter here is so compelling to overlook this book's many flaws, you will find your time and money far more rewarded by skipping this slacker's cream puff in favor of Robert Zubrin's "Entering Space."
Rating:
Summary: Lou Dobbs should stick to what he knows best
Review: Poor explanation of the industry. Shows a complete lack of understanding of the space industry. Was amused by the other reviewers (Lou Dobbs as NASA Administrator--I guess wasting tens of millions on Space.com wasn't enough for the reviewer). Seems that the other reviews were written by people more interested in space as an idea than as a business. Lou Dobbs should stick to what he does best -- being a business newscaster.
Rating:
Summary: Book me on the next flight
Review: The timing couldn't be better on this book. Three things made me pick it up this week: the success of the Mars Observer and the resignation of the head of NASA along with the sale of GM's satellite division to Echostar. Big news stories, every one. Though I'm sure that Mr. Dobbs (you can almost hear him reading this book in that CNN voice) and Mr. Newquist didn't write this book specifically with those events in mind, they do manage to be in the right place at the right time. They nail NASA for being a bloated bureaucracy but still praise its past achievements. And they dig pretty far down into the space industry (explaining, for instance, the strange relationship between Lockheed and Boeing--another recent headline). Dobbs' knowledge of business serves him well here, and I can't think of any other space book that has really looked at space as a place where hopefully we'll all be doing business some day.
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