WHEN THE HEAVENS WENT ON SALE The Misfits and Geniuses Racing to Put Space Within Reach

With exacting care, author Ashlee Vance introduces his immersive journalistic study of the commercial space race from the early 2000s to the present. Throughout the remainder of this spellbinding discussion of entrepreneurs and the business of space, Robert Petkoff recounts the successes and failures of contemporary commercial endeavors by the dreamers and multimillionaires of SpaceX, Falcon 1, Rocket Lab, Astra, Firefly, and Planet Labs to make rocket launches quotidian events. Petkoff is passionate as he describes attempts to seed low orbit with communication and geolocating satellites. A must-listen for fans of space-exploration science and the race for the stars. An accompanying pdf includes illustrations from the text. M.B.K. © AudioFile 2023, Portland, Maine [Published: JULY 2023]