Synopsis
Space deals with the issues involved in opening space to private travel and more commercial ventures.
Publishers Weekly
Outer space will languish as an economic vacuum until private enterprise is given its head, according to this dry and doctrinaire collection of papers from a conference sponsored by the libertarian Cato Institute. The contributors include congressmen, lawyers, business executives and an astronaut, and cover such topics as NASA's history, cheaper space travel, opportunities for and barriers to space investment and legal and property rights in space. The essays are sprinkled with sermonettes on the virtues of free markets and the evils of "central planning" and NASA's "self-perpetuating bureaucracy." But most writers are not free-market purists; their main agenda seems to be to channel government space spending to private companies in the form of tax breaks, loan guarantees, prize competitions, lucrative NASA outsourcing contracts and other "government-private sector partnerships." A look at the proposed space businesses shows why extraterrestrial commerce still needs the booster rocket of state subsidy. There are fuzzy schemes to "expand our economy" to the Moon and asteroids and beam solar energy from space, but hopes seem to ride primarily on space tourism and gimmicks like a logo-festooned "space sail" and a lunar rover webcam; how profitable any of these ventures would be, given the expense of operating in the vast distances and inhospitable climate of space, is not discussed. Apart from the already mature satellite business, it doesn't seem like there's much to do in space that's both financially rewarding and feasible, which is why this blueprint for a capitalist cosmos looks more like a welfare program for the aerospace industry. (Jan.) Copyright 2003 Cahners Business Information.