Per Aspera Ad Astra: From Peru to Space

Last year I bought this book through Amazon, but before I give my opinion, let’s go back to 2001. In 2001 I was working in the Space Elevator project as part of the HighLift Systems team. After the company ran out of funds and was unable to raise more money, I started to wonder what failed.

I didn’t find the answer until 2005, when my responsibilities in Hewlett-Packard changed and had a crash course on finances and law. It was then when I realized that the main hurdles of the Space Elevator were not technical, but financial and regulatory.

Financial because the Space Elevator requires a multi-billion dollar investment during 20+ years, with an unknown market and unknown profits; and regulatory because it required changes in maritime, air and space law. Aka, a very interesting challenge (and as you can see from my current Space Elevator posts, I like challenges)

With that know-how at hand, I read this book, and I can say it is the kind of book I would have written in 2001 (which I actually did, but on the colonization of Mars).

If you are looking for a high level description of the potential of a private space tourism industry, then this is the book for you. But if you are looking for a “down to Earth” investment plan for space tourism…mmm, I don’t know where you should look. Maybe use Earth tourism industry as a framework.

Today I took a short break to watch SpaceShip One’s first flight to space; it was awesome. So awesome that I didn’t pay attention to its spinning (duly noted by my boss who was also watching).

Luckily everything went ok and Mike Melvill managed to come back to good ol’ Earth:

SpaceShip One landing. Source: Ikluft

Although it is a great achievement for the Space Industry, I was a bit sad. When will I go back to space? Difficult to see. Always in motion is the future.