This book review was originally posted to my ko-fi page.
Science - 🔬🔬🔬
Difficulty- 📖📖📖
Target Audience- Space Policy Specialists, History Buffs
In a sentence? The world's billionaires echo the barons of the past in the new space age, with much to be discovered.
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Christian Davenport reports on defense and space topics for The Washington Post from a finance perspective. His Twitter header describes the Space Barons as "Ambition. Ego. Rivalries. Adventure. And a New Future In Space."
Of course, what shouted to me, "GET THIS BOOK," while casually scrolling on Amazon, was the ties to Blue Origin, SpaceX, and other new private space companies as we entered "a new golden space age," as Bezos quotes. In May 2020, it seemed like a good enough book to stay abreast about the topic as I continued reading and researching for some future thesis.
Hot dog, this book was an excellent read.
Davenport clearly gives history to the space era we live in, including information about the Constellation project's death and the rise of the Commercial Crew Program, which is something I desperately wanted more information about but didn't know where to find it.
He also gives greater context to Bezos' & Musk's internal motivations. Events growing up primed them for the space companies they now own, and now both want to make space more accessible to the average individual, just as airplanes are today.
Read in a matter of two days, this book started me down a path of how NASA, the "Old Boys" (Lockheed Martin, Raytheon, Boeing, ULA, etc), and the Space Barons (Blue Origin, SpaceX, Virgin Galatic, etc) significantly compare in advertising, public relations, and funding.
It would be interesting to look into how modern space marketing compares to historic space marketing. Is there more or less of it? How does this impact our understanding of these companies? Do these companies' ads and media events actually increase public engagement with science and space programs?
Davenport touches on a few of these points, but much remains to be found. Space Marketing is a new industry with more space to research and mature.
