Rating: 
Summary: Disapointingly Partisan
Review: I agree with the other reviewers of this book that it is pretending to be something that it is not. On October 14th 2004, book author Frank Sietzen represented George W. Bush in a Washington DC debate on Bush vs Kerry space policy. He has some very interesting points of view which should be heard, but to pretend that this book of his is an impartial look at historic events is laughable. It's a one-sided account of a complex chain of events, and this book ignores what is not convenient to its authors' points of view.
The book also goes out of its way to attack those it does not like. I am no fan of Dan Goldin's tenure as Nasa head, but nevertheless I felt this book crossed the line when it veered off course to begin attacking the man over appointments to university positions he was considered for AFTER he left Nasa. They had nothing to do with the story, or Nasa, and seem to serve only as a mean-minded slur. This book needed a good, honest editor, and for the authors to admit their biases.
Rating:
Summary: There are better books on this subject than this one.
Review: I find this book to stand in stark contrast to excellent accounts elsewhere - most notably the new epilogue in the paperback edition of Walter Cunningham's "The All-American Boys." Cunningham manages to state in 29 pages a compelling case of the good and bad points of NASA's reaction to the Columbia disaster, something which these two authors fail to do over an entire book. Cunningham is as politically partisan as they come, and yet his account of NASA's inner workings is far more fair, detailed and objectively critical than this extremely blinkered book. I'd recommend saving your money and not buying this book - or, better still, buy a better book, such as Cunningham's.
Rating: 
Summary: Fly on the Wall in the White House
Review: I liked the fact that this book is one of the few in existence that actually reports on the inner workings, not only of NASA but of the White House itself and the Bush Administration. I was pleasantly surprised by how much input the President had in the whole process of the new space exploration initiative. People interested in whether or not this initiative actually happens need to read this book to ascertain how the decisions were made. All NASA employees should definitely read this.
Rating:
Summary: Recommended - with reservations.
Review: I warily recommend this book as a very interesting and informative read, but one that is pretending to be something other than it is. In the Authors' Note at the beginning of the book the writing duo strenuously claim strict impartiality, saying of their central characters, Bush and O'Keefe, "The authors make no attempt to judge their actions as being good, bad or indifferent to the nation's interest."
This supposed impartiality is quickly shown to be an utter charade. Within a few pages, former NASA Administrator Dan Goldin is described as being in charge of a "nuthouse," a "Machiavelli" who is "dripping with ego and suspicion." Throughout the book he is described as demonic and incompetent in his personal and professional life. Others such as Bill Nelson suffer similar treatment, and even peripheral characters just as John Kerry are hauled into the fray to be swiped at and sniped at.
It is certainly an opinion, and the authors are entitled to it. However, to pretend that this book is not anything but heavily judgmental and biased is, frankly, laughable. A more accurate title for it would have been "Goldin Bad, O'Keefe Good." I am sure Sean O'Keefe loves every word in this book, but even he would not pretend it is impartial and must cringe at some of the more venomous attacks on his predecessor.
It's a great shame, as it is actually a pretty good book. The bureaucratic foibles of the Goldin era are in many cases reported very accurately, once you set aside the poisonous delivery. It's also very well written, in an engaging style that keeps you turning the pages through what could have been some rather dry bureaucratic deliberations. The authors' white knight on a charger, Sean O'Keefe, is thankfully shown to be human also at times. Once the rather fawning justification of his every action is skimmed over, there are some very insightful descriptions of the confusion in his inner circle on the day of the shuttle disaster, and other very illuminating glimpses at some key moments of recent NASA history. It's hard to know what to trust, however, when the book is so heavily slanted, and the authors do not admit their biases.
One of the authors, Keith Cowing, ran a website for many years called 'NASA Watch' which did a very important, in fact a vital job in pointing out many of the sillier bureaucratic decisions during the Goldin era. It appears that, with a change of administration, any critical thinking skills he had vanished, and he has now become the kind of apologist he once criticized. The book supports many of O'Keefe's decisions - such as the writing off of the Space Station when it was almost complete and finally ready to begin what it was designed for, and the ludicrous decision to abandon the Hubble space telescope - decisions that I suspect this book would have spent whole chapters criticizing if another administrator had taken such weak backward steps.
The long-term value of this book will only be known in a year or two. At the present time, it glorifies an event which so far has been a press conference with no real results. I support the aspirations of the authors for a reinvigorated NASA, but I suspect this book will turn out to be no more than a one-sided chronicling of another bureaucratic backwater in history.
Rating:
Summary: Critidal Decision Time at NASA
Review: I've long had a theory that you don't know what's going on in our Government until the books come out. And with all the recent news reports concentrating on Iraq and the election, any mention of the space program has been relegated to the very back pages, if it's there at all.
This book presents a fly-on-the-wall approach to 16 months of NASA history - February 1, 2003 to June 2, 2004. This period may prove to be a most important turning point in NASA history. This is the time from the Columbia disaster to the release of the Presidential Commission report on Moon, Mars, and Beyond.
One surprising point to me was the depth and detail to which George W. Bush himself was involved. Perhaps I'm wrong, but I just can't see Clinton getting involved in something like this. Bush chose a long time family friend to head up NASA with instruction to clean up NASA's act.
A note says: This book was written with the full cooperation of MASA and the Bush administration, but has not been and will not be reviewed by them or pre-approved in any way. The book does praise the Bush administration and some people will say that it unfairly handles the previous one. In my mind, that's what books are for. Let these authors express their opinions. Let someone else praise the other guys. I'll then read both books and decide for myself.
The book has it's own web site which promises updates to the book. I'd really like to hear what NASA and the administration are saying about Burt Rutan and Space Ship One. This project was done for something like $20 million. NASA couldn't have written the plans for that much. What are they really saying behind closed doors?
Rating: 
Summary: Review From An Alt.Spacer
Review: The book chronicles the processes around the evolution of the new vision for space that has been presented over the past year. But it isn't presented as a chronological history. Instead it follows themes and particular actors (O'Keefe to a great degree) that make it difficult at times to understand which events coincide with others. I've personally been paying close attention to this history so I know some of the context. If you don't know that context there are sections that will be very confusing. It delves deeply into NASA from the late Clinton administration straight through to post CAIB. At times it almost feels as though it were two books: the first half being a history of NASA and its reactions to Columbia and the other being a history of the Bush administrations efforts to reform an agency.Often books that have multiple authors feel disjointed as prose shifts from one style to another. The book suffers from that to a certain degree but not to the point of distraction. It is fairly to easy to determine who wrote particular sections. Frank adds color and description. Keith's sections have the same feel as NASA Watch itself: fact filled paragraphs listed in sections roughly associated with a theme but which often don't relate to each other directly. One almost expects to find permalinks and posting dates next to each individual paragraph in each subheading. But overall the flow works and it doesn't distract from the narrative and the analysis. A graphical timeline in an appendix would have helped immensely. I did find it rather amazing at how recent some of the text was. The section that mentioned the Space Exploration Alliance's Moon-Mars Blitz sounded almost as if it was about to discuss how the actual event went even though it happened only 6 days ago. Book printing must be an insanely fast process these days. The book did seem to be a bit rushed since there were some obvious typos and printing errors that a final read by someone could have caught. But that's just the old typesetter in me trying to get out of its cold dark cage. I was fairly disappointed in the fact that the book seemed to focus almost exclusively on NASA. Burt Rutan received one paragraph. The sections of the Aldridge Commission report on changing the way NASA approaches contracting seems to have been misunderstood. Indeed, the entire analysis of the Commission's report seems to have been done without actually consulting anyone on the commission and to have been compiled completely from publicly available information. The Space Exploration Alliance received almost a page but there seemed to be no reporting on anything any of the member organizations were saying through SEA. As I neared the end of the book I found myself actively skipping whole pages attempting to find some mention of the more wide ranging policy suggestions that the Commission had made. Sure, I'm biased since I consider myself part of the "alt.space" crowd, but the laser-like focus on NASA and nothing but NASA was disappointing. What will be interesting is to see whether or not this book dispels some of the "Bush just did this for a publicity stunt. He doesn't really care about space" nonsense that seems to come from "left" field. I'm sure some will accuse Frank and Keith of carrying water for the Administration but the level of verifiable detail will make it obvious that those accusations are marginal at best. One never gets a hint of "infatuation" that being around power can create. I would recommend the book, but don't expect it to be as comprehensive as the dust jacket makes it sound. I would hope that both Frank and Keith take the opportunity to round out their analysis and coverage by looking at how the entire space industry, "alt" or otherwise, had input into and is being affected by the new vision.
Rating:
Summary: Very enlightening
Review: This book is a history of recent years at NASA, concentrating on the time between the Columbia accident and mid-summer 2004, about 6-7 months after President Bush's annoucement of his new Vision for Space Exploration. It is quite enlightening to see the inner workings. If there's a "take-home point" to the book, it's that management and politics have at least as much to do with the success/failure of NASA as do any amount of technical ingenuity.
The book starts off with a rather detailed description of Dan Goldin's departure from NASA in 2001. The authors obviously have definite opinions of Dan Goldin, and bash him a good bit. I'm sure they have their reasons for doing so. But unsubstantiated bashing begs for more detail, or at least makes me wonder what Goldin might have to say to defend himself.
Following this is a description of Sean O'Keefe's selection as the new NASA adminstrator, and his handling of the Columbia accident and its aftermath. This section is very complimentary toward O'Keefe and his inner circle, and made me like them quite a bit. However, it does seem the authors' opinions are showing through again. There's a marked contrast between their description of O'Keefe as being completely supportive of CAIB and its recommendations, and the account in "Comm Check" by Cabbage/Harwood, which described sometimes tense relations between O'Keefe and Hal Gehman of CAIB.
The CAIB events lead to the question of, "What should NASA's vision be going forward?" This gives us one of the best sections of the book: where the authors describe the meetings of the Splinter and Rump groups within the White House, and how the new Vision comes about. This account is not exhaustive or complete, but it was quite fascinating to see how things took shape, as a concensus was gradually reached.
Following the "Vision" chapter, the authors give a history of recent new launch initiatives within NASA. This describes the X-33/X-34 of the late 90's, into the Space Launch Initiative, X-38, and Orbital Space Plane. It seems people have been trying (and mostly failing) to get NASA to look forward, and this puts the Vision as the latest attempt in historical context, possibly as a cautionary tale. (Warning: there are a lot of details and acronyms here. I had to read it twice to get everything straight.)
The final chapters of the book describe Bush's announcement, and the political maneuvering that followed. The authors make some points here on focusing NASA's efforts, and prioritizing research toward a well-defined goal. As opposed to allowing and encouraging all possible research, in order to keep your budget and your kingdom as large as possible. This point is well taken. Again the authors seem quite enamored of Craig Steidle, the new head of the Office of Exploration Systems, and his efforts to make NASA have that focus going forward. Certainly their portrayal of Steidle makes me wish him well.
As noted in other reviews, the authors obviously have a point of view. The good thing is, their biases are so obvious that it's easy to notice and take into account when reading. Also, they obviously care a great deal about their subject matter, so their biases can be forgiven somehat. Also, a better editing job would increase the book's quality. I understand they rushed this book to press to keep it timely, but at least a cursory spell-check would have been nice.
The dvd is a nice addition, esp. O'Keefe's press conference, which gives you a feel for the man.
Overall, I would recommend this book for its insider's look at what's been going at NASA. This is invaluable reading, even given some of the problems with the book.
Rating:
Summary: A Unique Insight into the Making of Space Policy
Review: This book reminds me of "The reluctant space-fares - The political and economic consequences of America's space effort", published in 1965 by Frank B. Gibney and George J. Feldman. In their book, Gibney and Feldman provide a valuable insight into the creation of NASA and the political fights that held back the space program.
New Moon Rising provides similar insights, in that the authors were accorded unprecedented access to NASA personnel and what happened in meetings leading up to the making of the current space policy.
The first few chapters provide an excellent overview of recent events in the space program and once we get to chapter 6, "In Search of a Mission", the reader begins to see how the new vision took shape. Step by step the reader is provided with a chronology of how we got to where we are today. This book provides and excellent insight into space policy formulation at the executive level and how NASA is being tasked to transform itself. Anyone who cares about the space program and the future of space exploration should read this book.
Note: I am the business partner of Keith Cowing, one of the authors. So is my review objective? Yes it is. I know the authors, and in particular Keith, and I know the hours and effort that went into making this book. Both Keith and Frank are passionate and dedicated. One is democrat and the other a republican. Together they have written a valuable historical account of recent events.
Rating:
Summary: The Future Of Space Exploration
Review: This is a very detailed and sometimes enlightening story of the people and events leading up to America's recent new space vision. Of course, as this book points out, the Columbia tragedy may have been a necessary precursor to this space vision, nevertheless it is long overdue and really should have begun after the Challenger accident. Sietzen and Cowing detail here the behind-the-scenes debates and decisions that may very well determine the course of the space agency over the next several decades, and perhaps longer. What has emerged is actually a blueprint for the long term migration of humans into the solar system, and not a brief quick dash to the moon as Apollo was, and it includes a mix of robotic scouting missions to pave the way for human expeditions. I have to give credit, after reading the book, to the Bush administration, and the members of the 'Splinter Group' who met in the basement of the White House to push for this new space policy, and as the authors write, these unidentified people are 'true spacers' who really believe in space exploration, and in my opinion are heroes, and there are also others mentioned in this book, some you would never expect.
One of the things that is covered here is the debate behind the rationale of space exploration. In the past most people supporting space exploration stressed the practical benefits such as improved medicines and materials processing. While worthy goals in themselves, they may have been over-emphasized in the past. The new space visionaries claim, in an unabashed fashion, the real reason for space exploration, and that is for the sake of exploration in itself. Hooray for them.
But this is also a tale of the managerial mistakes of our NASA, the cost over-run of the International Space Station, and of how, over the past 18 years or so, three launch systems were concieved, much money spent, and then cancelled. The era of NASA administrator Dan Goldin is well documented, and the efforts of administrator Sean O'Keefe are wrote about in much detail, with the new managerial style he brought to NASA recieving coverage of many pages here. Politics are important also, much of the book covers this as well.
The new space vision is long term, of course, but the near term goals of Project Constellation are to develop the Crew Exploration Vehicle to replace the Space Shuttle (long overdue), conduct further robotic exploration of the solar system, use the space station as a test bed for human long term space flight, and sometime in the next decade return astronauts to the moon. A longer term goal is human exploration of Mars. All of this is progressive and exciting and as the authors state here, and almost everyone who supports space exploration agree, it is long overdue that we move out of low earth orbit and continue on to do what NASA is all about, exploration. This book is a masterpiece and should be read by everyone interested in NASA and our future in space.
Rating:
Summary: Interesting book, shame about the cover.
Review: This is a very interesting book with much in the way of unique insight into what could be an historic moment in the space program, or not, depending on what happens next. The book is really let down by the cover though, which is an almost identical copy of Doolan and Burgess's space book "Fallen Astronauts" . This is going to cause no end of confusion on book shelves in the science section of book stores, and perhaps even online if Amazon pair them as a 2-for-1 special buy. What a shame the publishers could not pick a new image that has not already been used on another recently published space book.
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