Top positive review
5.0 out of 5 starsTimely space race update
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 2 May 2023
Comprehensive, highly-readable and clear overview of the current situation of astropolitics.
As someone who as a child was excited by Sputnik (1957) it’s been fascinating watching events unfold in the decades since.
In space as on Earth, China, Russia and the US are the Big Three, but many other countries are also staking their claims in space.
Big prizes are Moon bases and then Mars and beyond, but a host of countries are aiming for lower but strategically important targets, putting up satellites for various reasons.
Therefore, we have to face and meet some challenges - “the arms race, the competition for territory and resources, the lack of laws and many other negative aspects” (page 234). Including the massive amount of debris circling the planet.
After potted histories of astronomy and space travel, Marshall launches into a fair and balanced account of current astropolitics.
It’s interesting that only China appears to have called for the United Nations to have a central role “in managing outer space affairs.” (page 107).
And private companies have also emerged as major players – SpaceX, Virgin Galactic and Blue Origin, and i-Space in China and Arsenal in Russia (page 86).
Marshall details threats of violent solar flares and asteroids (pages 92-4) and it’s unsurprising these concerns are also mirrored in the recently published, equally brilliant, The Earth Transformed by Peter Frankopan (pages 649-50).
These two books might be read in tandem to give a complete picture of the history and recent escalation of terrestrial and off-Earth geographical challenges.
Marshall has done a competent and enlightening job in giving us the facts and background – we see what needs to be done, but will it be done?