Spaceport Earth: The Reinvention of Spaceflight

by Joe Pappalardo

Overview

It’s the 21st-century and everything about the space industry is changing, and leading that charge are private sector companies including Elon Musk’s SpaceX and Jeff Bezos’s Blue Origin, which are building a dizzying array of new spacecraft and rockets, not just for government use, but for any paying customer. At the heart of this space revolution are spaceports, the center and literal launching pads of spaceflight. Spaceports cost hundreds of millions of dollars, face extreme competition, and host operations that do not tolerate failures—which can often be fatal.Aerospace journalist Joe Pappalardo has witnessed space rocket launches around the world, from the jungle of French Guiana to the coastline of California. In his comprehensive work Spaceport Earth, Pappalardo describes the rise of private companies and how they are reshaping the way the world is using space for industry and science. Spaceport Earth is a travelogue through modern space history as it is being made, offering space enthusiasts, futurists, and technology buffs a close perspective of rockets and launch sites, and chronicling the stories of industrial titans, engineers, government officials, billionaires, schemers, and politicians who are redefining what it means for humans to be a spacefaring species.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781468316926
Publisher:	Abrams Press
Publication date:	03/26/2019
Edition description:	Reprint
Pages:	256
Product dimensions:	5.40(w) x 8.10(h) x 0.80(d)

About the Author

Joe Pappalardo is a contributing editor at Popular
Mechanics. His work has also appeared in Smithsonian
Air & Space, Esquire.com, Time magazine, American Way, andMental Floss, and he has appeared on the History Channel, the Science Channel, C-SPAN, CNN, Fox News Channel, and The John Batchelor Show.

Table of Contents

Chapter 1 Endings and Beginnings 11

Chapter 2 Welcome to the Jungle 33

Chapter 3 Moments in Mojave 47

Chapter 4 Desert Hubris 71

Chapter 5 Wild Horses at the Pilotless Research Station 87

Chapter 6 Armageddon Spaceports 101

Chapter 7 The ULA/SpaceX Fend 119

Chapter 8 Texas 139

Chapter 9 Waco and Tucson: New Arrivals 159

Chapter 10 Cape Redux: 2016 179

Chapter 11 Trials by Fire 197

Chapter 12 The End of the Beginning 209

Space Lingo 229

Selected Sources 236

Acknowledgments 242

Index 243

Editorial Reviews

Joe Pappalardotakes the reader on a tour of these [commercial spaceport] facilities, and the advances and setbacks they’ve faced. It’s a good introduction for those new to the field, but it’s also a fine read for those familiar with the commercial spaceflight industry.. .Pappalardo has an eye for local color that shines in the book as he describes the places that have or are seeking spaceports and the people who live there . . .Readers ofSpaceport
Earthwill get a good flavor of the development of spaceports and the rise of a commercial launch industry.

The Space Review

A fresh look at where we are here, at the end of the second decade of the twenty-first century as the United States leads the world in what will be a tremendous commercial success . . . [Spaceport Earth] is a wonderful, helpful book.”

The John Batchelor Show

Joe Pappalardo has done a service to those who wonder what exactly we have been doing in space since the end of the Space Shuttle era. He travels to he strange sites carved out of jungles and deserts to meet the starry-eyed investors and engineers hoping to create a second great space age. Through scrubs and explosions, big talk and real breakthroughs, he shows us where we are now—with human launches from American soil still tantalizingly just over the next horizon.

Margaret Lazarus Dean

When the last space shuttle launched in 2011, it marked what many believed was the end of human flights into space. However,Joe Pappalardo suggests inSpaceport Earththe end is nowhere in sight . . .a detailed account of the new leaders in the space industry.”

Shelf Awareness

It might seem like there's a rocket launch every day now, but in the not-so-distant future the tempo of blastoffs could increase even more. In Spaceport Earth, Joe Pappalardo takes us to future launchpads around the world, showing us how spaceports are being built to launch us into the stars.”

Popular Science

Spaceport Earth tackles the ever-changing, 21st-century space industry and what privately funded projects like Elon Musk's SpaceX mean for the future of space travel.”

Foreign Policy

Pappalardo embarks on a journey across America — and to select launchpads around the world — to chronicle how commercial players are turning spaceflight into an even more exciting enterprise . . .[Spaceport Earth]shows that the United States did not stop innovating after the space shuttle program.”

Space.com

Private companies and rich people like Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos have taken over the exploration of space. Pappalardo explores this new sort of spacefaring at the outer reaches of business and technology.

The New York Times ("New and Noteworthy")

For anyone obsessed with how spaceflight grew into what it is today, this book is a must-have.

Popular Mechanics

11/01/2017
From the first Mercury astronaut to travel into space to the Apollo moon landing to inhabiting the International Space Station (ISS), space exploration has been under the purview of the U.S. government's National Aeronautics and Space Agency (NASA). After the demise of the space shuttle program in 2011, the future of space exploration and travel was uncertain. Aerospace journalist Pappalardo (editor in chief, Dallas Observer) explores how spaceflight has been reinvented and reinvigorated through the initiatives of private corporations and pioneering entrepreneurs. Companies such as Richard Branson's Virgin Galactic, Elon Musk's SpaceX, and Jeff Bezos's Blue Origin stand at the forefront of commercial spaceflight and aim to develop a thriving space tourism business through building spaceports and space ships. They also have been contracting out their transport services, resupplying the ISS for NASA, and launching satellites for telecommunications companies and the military. VERDICT The author's engaging style and clear explanations of the technology and processes that are involved in the exciting world of commercial spaceflight will delight space buffs, technology enthusiasts, and the general science reader.—Donna Marie Smith, Palm Beach Cty. Lib. Syst., FL

Library Journal