stiennon et al. - the rocket company

this novel is classed as science fiction, but i am more inclined to call it non-fiction. the authors are an aerospace engineer (patrick stiennon) and an aerospace consultant (david hoerr), and they have patented some of the elements of the spaceship presented in the novel.

the plot revolves around a group of seven million/billionaires (only one of whom is even given a name),  who wish to go into business in space launch services. from there on it reads more like a technical paper and a business proposal than a novel; there are long stretches where one character, usually an aerospace engineer, monologues about some aspect of spacecraft design. there is no characterization almost at all and the characters merely serve as mouthpieces for the authors. in my opinion the novel format doesn’t work too well and i would rather this was a series of essays, and at least references and sources could have been included. i also believe that the type of people who will read this novel, would have enjoyed a series of essays just as much (but I suppose a novel is more marketable).

since the book basically presents the design of a space launch system from  the ground up, there are plenty of juicy technical details, for example: what should be the liquid oxygen tank be made of? aluminium isogrid structure, cold-rolled high-strength steel or some composites (followed by  a description of the pros and cons of each approach as well as the history of how each of these materials was developed and used in the past).  beside the technical details, of which there are plenty, the novel addresses production, marketing and legal issues as well. Let me just illustrate what i mean by quoting the beginning of chapter 13 (page 113):

"[...] i have been wondering why you didn't specify kerosene instead of methane - kerosene seems to be the hydrocarbon fuel of choice for everybody else". tom responded, "those are good questions, and they deserve good answers. you know, i think you could use some historical context - the story of rocket propellant development is rather fascinating - and understanding it is important to what we are doing here. in fact, why don't we go talk to peter down in the propellant chemistry section?"

and this is followed by a chapter-long discussion of various rocket fuels, their history, availability and cost.

one serious beef that i had with the novel is the use of imperial units instead of metric. i realize this is for the benefit of the american audience, but most modern astronautics books and college or university classes that I own use either metric units or both.

i own the paperback version and it features gorgeous line drawings by doug birkholz (industrial designer).

i really enjoyed this novel, but i would not recommend it for everybody; you have probably figured out already from this description whether you are interested or not.

andy weir - the martian

another sci-fi debut novel that hits the mark. if you've enjoyed the 1995 movie apollo 13 and the tv series macguyver (and who hasn't?), then this book is definitely for you.

the story follows the exploits of a near-future astronaut stranded on mars who has to devise ways to survive for 4 years(!) until the next martian landing that may rescue him, more than 3000km away from his present location. i had compared the book to the movie apollo 13 because it really felt like reading an extra long book version of it. the novel is supposed to be the diary our astronaut writes in hopes of it being found even if he dies on the surface of mars. while he does use some technical jargon, he always follows up with explanations and plenty of witty humor for the layperson who might read his diary if it is published after his return to earth or demise on mars (and these parts really felt like an advanced macguyver who explains his set-up without shying away from also giving numbers and doing back-of-the-envelope calculations). and just like with macguyver, you learn a lot of interesting tidbits about martian timekeeping, weather systems, geography and geology in-situ resource utilization and, of course, rocket launches and orbital mechanics. a bit of familiarity with the real-world nasa history is perhaps required as the protagonist sometimes refers to historical events without giving the context, for example he happily notes that the carbon dioxide filters of the habitat and the rover are compatible, noting that apollo 13 was a good lesson.

also very interesting is the story of how this novel came to be. the author could not find a publisher interested in the novel and made it freely available on his website; later, at the urging of fans who wanted the convenience of an e-reader, he published the book for kindle on amazon, priced at 99 cents (the minimum that amazon allows). and it turned out to be an overnight success: now he has a proper publisher (and the e-book costs 12$), the book made the new york times bestseller list, there is an audio book and also sold the movie rights for a six-figure sum, not bad at all. the movie is to be directed by ridley scott, starring matt damon and promises to be awesome as long as they keep that lindelof hack away from the script.

comet chasing

last week has been quite eventful for people following space vehicle launches: first there was the maiden flight of the russian angara 1.2 (the member of a proposed modular launch system that could replace most russian space vehicles - they've been working on this since the 90s), then the flawless launch of a cygnus resupply craft for the iss on top of an antares rocket and, last monday, another successful falcon 9 launch and a soft landing of the first stage in the ocean (slowly paving the way for a truly reusable launch system).

so i had decided to post about an event here in vaasa from last may. to celebrate the rosetta spaceprobe's arrival in the vicinity of its target, comet 67p, after a 10-year-long journey, an exhibition-truck as been touring the nordic countries.

tibi + 1:4 scale replica of rosetta

the goal is to raise public awareness, educate the people and highlight the importance of this historic mission (the first soft landing on the surface of a comet) and of course the contributions of the nordic countries to this esa mission. i myself have visited the truck together with some highschoolers and their physics teacher. the truck contained 1:4 scale replicas of the rosetta probe and the smaller lander, philae as well as digital presentations of the launch and the long and exciting journey, fliers and various promotional materials and a friendly staff ready to answer your questions.

if you are interested in reading more about the mission (and you should be), visit the official website. it is particularly interesting to read about the scientific payload carried by the probe & lander. among many other things, rosetta has an atomic force microscope for characterizing dust particles in the comet's tail, with a spatial resolution of 4nm. another interesting experiment, named consert (comet nucleus sounding experiment by radiowave transmission), involves the lander on the surface and the orbiting probe sending radio waves back and forth to each other through the comet to gain information about the inner structure. it is really interesting, check out the website!

rosetta hits the road

anthony williams - the foresight war

an alternate ww2 novel with a very particular flavor.  the author is a military technology historian and the novel focuses a great deal on the technological improvements of various weapon systems during the war. as with most alternate history novels, this book is more enjoyable if the reader is somewhat familiar with the real-world timeline and events. 

ww2 is perhaps the most frequent setting for alternate history, present in every medium:  we’ve seen/read guided missile destroyers (anime/manga - "zipang"), aircraft carriers (film - "the final countdown"), whole fleets (novels - "axis of time") or just a single person (twilight zone – "time out") travel to the past. in this novel, the time traveler, called a “throwback”, has very little present day technology, only the things he carries with him habitually, but is an historian whose expertise is the technological developments, tactics and strategies of the second world war. wisely, the author doesn’t go into details about how the time travel is accomplished (it was probably alien space bats :p ).

the novel  follows the time traveler as he takes part in planning sessions or reviews news from the front lines, interspaced with chapters from the points of view of soldiers, both allied and axis, who use or come face to face with some of the weapons. i greatly enjoyed this set-up of alternating technical discussions and planning with riveting action scenes. my only regret is that the book seemed too short (it should have been at least twice as long).

all the developments are very plausible and are merely existing technologies that entered the war later or real world prototypes that were never pursued in our timeline (there is no future tech). the throwback is a historian, not an engineer/physicist/chemist, so he can state that centimetric radar was used to great effect in spotting submarines from planes, but he doesn’t know how to build a resonant cavity magnetron to enable this technology. the appendix of the book provides a list of all the weapons and technologies that are present in the novel along with the real-world counterparts. if this subject interests you, i can also recommend “rapid fire” by the same author; a history book documenting the development of automatic cannons and machine guns for the armies, navies and air forces of the world.

the prose is adequate and the characterization is forgettable, but neither is really the focus of the novel. i had enjoyed it a lot, but it is not everybody’s cup of tea. have you ever wondered how ww2 would have turned out had the royal air force focused less on strategic bombers and more on maritime escort planes, if the royal navy had concentrated more on aircraft carriers and fast ships instead of large caliber battleships or if britain had fortified malaya and singapore against the japanese attack? then this book is for you.

there is also a freely available sequel “foresight america”, by paul adkins written during the national novel writng month of 2006 (here all the big six nations britain, germany, soviet union, america, italy, japan get their own throwbacks), but the novel is somewhat unfinished.