THE CONSEQUENTIAL FRONTIER.

• Author: Doherty, Brian

Journalist Peter Ward's book The Consequential Frontier: Challenging the Privatization of Space provides more evidence of what's right about the privatization of space than evidence of what's wrong with it. The latter point is mostly addressed via tossedoff addendums full of leftist catch-phrase complaints about monopoly, inequality, lack of democracy, and greed stuck at the end of chapters full of good reporting about the state of the industry.

The book details how private efforts in space have dramatically lowered satellite launch costs from wasteful cost-plus government programs that would do more to maintain jobs in multiple congressional districts than get things into orbit. It tells how the private sector developed reusable rocket boosters and how private actors are making actual space living a possibility in a way NASA never did.

The old corporate guard of Lockheed Martin and Boeing are being challenged by eager, innovative startups such...