Crowded Orbits: Conflict and Cooperation in Space

Outstanding historical overview and compelling analysis. Authored in 2014, a number of factual premises have not remained true over time (eg an “emerging norm against kinetic ASAT tests.”) I hope an updated edition is forthcoming: if it does, it will sit alongside the original edition in my library as both will have relevance… for current and historic purposes.

Well researched and informative but dry. Can't blame the author though, it's hard to make policy and policy discussions interesting. Definitely worth reading if you're in the space operations world or interested in how things got to the way they are.

has helped to understand to future in space

Excellent introduction to the issues facing us in space.

This is probably one book in ten thousand: the blurbs for it accurately describe both its contents and its quality. Although the book's compact size took me aback when it first arrived, the author does an excellent job of packing in a great deal of information about commercial, military and other uses of outer space, as well as the legal and diplomatic context for them, into a small *printed* space.Among other things, the book provides an overview of the space programs of a wide range of spacefaring countries, as well as some historical insight into how each of those countries has contributed diplomatic initiatives or obstacles (and often both) to the development of international cooperation in space. A particularly intriguing topic that gets mentioned a couple of times is the coming trend toward cubesats, nanosats and picosats, small boxes filled with sophisticated electronics and weighing about as much as a couple of bags of cat litter, or even considerably less. While these are are being pushed by some start-ups (e.g., Planet Labs, Skybox Imaging) as the cutting edge of Yankee ingenuity, in fact they could make the space debris problem far more complicated, since they don't carry any fuel and aren't controllable once they're in orbit.I did find it tough to share the author's acceptance of the idea that humanity will "need" to obtain resources from the Moon and asteroids, though he may be more correct to say it's "inevitable" that we'll do so (@190). The legal context for mining and other commercial exploitation of heavenly bodies remains pretty gray, though, so it would be nice to see more discussion about that in a future update of this book. Maybe next time there could also be more discussion about intellectual property issues relating to space. One can find a good introduction to that and a few other issues in Matthew Kelman's "The Little Book of Space Law" (ABA 2013), another very nice entry-level book. Kelman speculates about a possible "flag of convenience" issue that might create obstacles to enforcing patents on spacefaring technology. But since Kelman's book tends to focus on US law more than on international policy and practice, overall it's narrower in scope than this one.In keeping with the recent unfortunate trend in academic publishing, the book has endnotes but no bibliography; the saving grace is that the endnotes only take up about 15 pages, so finding useful references is less painful than it would have been for a longer book. All in all, this is an excellent way to get up to speed about current issues in the international use and regulation of outer space, regardless of your prior background.

A great work for those new to the space environment, Moltz accurately captures many of the challenges associated. I've written a more detailed review which is available through the Air Force Research institutes at http://www.au.af.mil/au/afri/review_full.asp?id=686.