Rocketeers excerpt

I have an excerpt from my forthcoming book, Rocketeers, up at the newly revamped michaelbelfiore.com.

Check it out and let me know what you think (yes, that's Tim Pickens riding his rocket bike). Let me know what you think of the new site too.

Zero-g super powers

I spoke this weekend with lunalight4r5d, the winner of the $75,100 eBay auction for last Thursday's zero-g flight with physicist Stephen Hawking. Lunalight4r5d, who wishes to remain anonymous, gave me the best endorsement of the zero-g experience I've heard yet.

"It's not really like being weightless in water," she said. "Water has its own weight. You're still experiencing something like a pressure. But this is the feeling of no pressure." Going weightless made her realize "how rarely we experience an entirely new physical sensation over your whole body, and that was just so different. I couldn't have really anticipated what it would feel like."

In fact, she said, it wasn't until she got back on the ground that she "understood the magic" of the experience. "It was like I had gained this momentary super power that I couldn't access any more. I felt like I should be able to just launch off the ground and go flying across the hotel lobby."

Like flying in a dream, Zero-G Corp. founder Peter Diamandis has described the weightless experience, and lunalight4r5d agreed.

In dreams, we're pure spirit, freed of the constraints of our bodies. For Hawking, unable to move most of his body because of a degenerative nerve disease, the difference between free fall and life under gravity seems more pronounced. But, really, his is the fate we all share: shackled to the ground, barely able to lift ourselves.

Hawking and other visionaries have said that we must settle space if we're to avoid the fate of the dinosaurs, and that may be true. But their space dream is equally inspired by the desire to set free the human spirit.

Lunalight4r5d comes from a family of philanthropists, and the eBay auction presented an irresistible opportunity to support the Starlight Starbright Children's Foundation, one of her favorite charities.

Sharing the Zero-G flight with one of this century's greatest minds pushed an already sublime experience into the realm of the surreal. "I really almost felt like I was a person reading about it in some history book in the future. The red apple floating around as a tribute to Isaac Newton, and just connecting him to the greats of history," she said of Hawking, "that was the most phenomenal experience."

Rocketeers off to the printers

Okay, well, not quite, but my role in creating the book is over, and now it's up to the production department at Smithsonian Books to input my final, handwritten changes to the layout, and ship it to the printer. My editor hopes to have bound galleys ready for reviewers by May 1, and then it goes on sale August 1.

Of course, my work is far from over. In fact, some would say it's just begun. Next comes promoting the book, which will mean doing lots of interviews and trying to get as many media impressions as I can.

Step one is to launch a revamped website at www.michaelbelfiore.com. I'll have excerpts, blurbs from advance readers, my schedule of appearances, and lots of other goodies. Stay tuned.

Destination Space

Looks like the Virgin Group has beat me to the punch with a commercial spaceflight book out a few months in advance of my Rocketeers.

I don't consider this book a true competitor, though, since it's published by one of the main players in the commercial spaceflight arena and apparently keeps its focus on that company's activities.

In that light, it's possible to see this as more of a public relations piece than as a work of journalism. Can anyone who has seen the book correct me if I'm wrong? Comments welcome!

My book is unaffiliated with any of the NewSpace companies and thus avoids any conflicts of interest. It also covers a broad range of endeavors, not just one.

When last I checked, I was still the only author of a book on this subject to report firsthand not only on the work of Virgin Galactic and Scaled Composites, but also on SpaceX, Bigelow Aerospace, Rocketplane Kistler, Armadillo Aerospace, and many others, to present the first comprehensive view of the birth of commercial spaceflight.

From the latest Virgin Galactic newsletter, released Friday:

"Read all about the amazing Galactic story in Virgin Books' new publication 'Destination Space', which features Virgin Galactic.

Award winning writer Kenny Kemp, goes in search of the story behind the first commercial space flight, discovering the major players in the race and the science, business and politics behind this incredible breakthrough. At the centre of the story are the paying passenger astronauts who have demonstrated their passion and commitment to the project."

The book is available now in the U.K., and is scheduled for release in the U.S. on May 29.

Stay tuned for more news of Rocketeers.

Flying high with Stephen Hawking

How much is a zero gravity ride with the world's greatest physicist worth? $75,100, says the winner of an auction that just closed on eBay.

All of the proceeds will go to Starlight Starbright Children's Foundation. eBay member lunalight4r5d will enjoy hotel accommodations, dinner with Professor Hawking, and of course that weightless flight on Zero-G Corp.'s Boeing 727. The ship flies parabolic arcs to let passengers experience lunar, Martian, and zero gravity. The flight will take place on April 26.

No word yet on lunalight4r5d's secret identity.

The Astronaut Farmer

If you're at all interested in the current, real-world efforts to build private spaceships, you'll be disappointed by this movie about an aerospace engineer/rancher building his own ride to space. Filmmakers Mark and Michael Polish didn't do their homework on what it actually takes to build a private spaceship, and the film suffers mightily for it.

Michael Polish describes his inspiration for the film this way in an interview on the Smithsonian Air & Space website:

"One day I walked into Mark’s room and said, 'Wouldn’t it be a neat idea if a guy built a rocket in his barn?” It was that simple. I might have been watching space programs or something on the Discovery Channel.'"

An even neater idea would be to visit one or two people actually building rockets in their barns, garages, or airplane hangars, or hire one of them as an expert adviser. Without this kind of basic research the film looks like someone's vague idea of what such a project might look like, rife with silly misconceptions.

For instance the plot turns on the FBI moving in to shut the astronaut down before he can launch because he tries to obtain "high-test rocket fuel," thus creating a national security threat. Apparently the filmmakers didn't know that rocket fuel is nothing more than kerosene, and not much to get excited about.

Not only the FBI, but also the CIA, NASA, and the FAA, all take a such an interest in the project that they bother to send representatives (including the heads of the FAA and the CIA) to the astronaut's small town in Texas to interrogate him in a high school gymnasium. During a break in the proceedings, the CIA head threatens the astronaut in the men's room, saying he'll bomb the astronaut and his ranch to bits if he tries to launch.

You only have to search on Google for "private spaceflight" to know that homebuilt spaceships got real back in 2004 and that everyone and his mother are building their own spaceships now, no intimidation by the FAA, the CIA, or any other "A" required.

That the Polish brothers missed that is a real shame because their film perpetuates the myth that the government will allow only the government to send people into space and that private spaceflight is only one or two people's crazy dream with little relevance for everyone else.

An excellent cast, including Billy Bob Thornton as the citizen-astronaut, and Bruce Willis as a NASA astronaut, lend a little shine to an otherwise deeply flawed film. In particular, Thornton's speech to his interrogators about the importance in believing you can do anything you set your mind to, and a monologue from Willis on the overview effect almost, but not quite, make the movie worth watching.

--
Update on 2/26/07

Some in the private space community are more forgiving of the film than I. Check out some enthusiastic comments from XCOR Aerospace test pilot Rick Searfoss and Space Frontier Foundation cofounder Rick Tumlinson at Alan Boyle's Cosmic Log.

Rocketeers new cover

Rocketeers
Originally uploaded by mpbelfiore.

I spoke too soon when I said the cover for my forthcoming commercial spaceflight book was finalized. Turns out a certain high-volume bookseller thought it lacked punch, so the designers went back to the drawing board and came up with this one.

The artwork, by Nick Kaloterakis, is from the February 2006 cover of Popular Science, illustrating my story on the Rocket Racing League.

I like the book jacket a lot; it looks like a retro science fiction book cover, which is completely appropriate, since the book is about old-time science fiction coming true.