Author: Ashlee Vance
Ashlee Vance has written an excellent book detailing the many folks seeking to enter the privately owned space industry.
Vance is an award winning feature writer for Bloomberg Businessweek magazine. Vance is also the host of the “Hello World” TV show. Previously, he worked for The New York Times and The Register.
Through his trademark immersive reporting, Vance follows four pioneering companies — Astra, Firefly, Planet Labs, and Rocket Lab — as they build new space systems and attempt to launch rockets and satellites into orbit by the thousands.
While the public fixated on the space tourism being driven by the likes of Jeff Bezos and Richard Branson, these new companies arrived with a different set of goals: to make rocket and satellite launches fast and cheap.
When the Heavens Went on Sale travels through private company headquarters, labs, and top-secret launch locations around the world, including California, Texas, Alaska, New Zealand, Ukraine, India, and French Guiana.
He chronicles it all in full color: the private jets, communes, gun-toting bodyguards, drugs and espionage investigations.
