Space technology has an important role to play in shaping a sustainable future, employing both human and robotic spaceflight capabilities. But the U.S. civil space program focuses the majority of its resources on the traditional paradigm of sending humans to increasingly distant targets (the Moon, Mars, and beyond). Rather than picking the destinations first and figuring out the goals later, the book suggests that NASA’s spaceflight programs should primarily target the creation of advanced capabilities, especially space infrastructure in the Earth-Moon system, and facilitate a greater role for the commercial sector in this endeavor. This will bring direct benefits to Earth more quickly and at the same time enable steady progress in the exploration and development of the solar system. The narrative begins by examining space in the context of today’s globalized world. Globalization has been a good news/bad news story, and space technology has been an important factor in this process. New wealth and international collaboration have been generated, but so have new problems and old problems have accelerated and spread. If we make the right choices, space development can do more to provide solutions in the decades ahead. The work of noted space futurists of the Cold War era is reviewed, with particular attention to the question: Why have things turned out differently from what most experts predicted and most advocates expected? The NASA exploration program finds itself locked into the “Von Braun paradigm” of the 1950s, which focuses on human spaceflight to the Moon and Mars without adequately explaining the reasons for doing it. This situation is not well suited to the political, economic, and societal environment of the 21st century. At a time when long-term strategic thinking is needed to address enduring global issues, many forces drive us to short-term thinking. The most significant of these forces for the nation’s top decision-makers come from the election cycle, the budget cycle, and the news cycle. Their effects on the presidency, the Congress, and the bureaucracy are examined using examples from recent history and current practices. The emphasis is on the need to change the incentive structure to promote long-term thinking since big technology projects have multi-decade life cycles and are aimed at problems that are national and global in scope. This shift in thinking leads to a revised rationale for spaceflight for the coming decades that is more directly tied to societal needs and ambitions. Space development will require more resources than NASA—or even all of the world’s civilian space agencies combined—can devote to the effort. Partnership with the commercial sector will be essential. Will space commerce be the stimulus for moving out into the solar system? If so, will it contribute to improvement of life back on Earth at the same time? Space commerce is growing fast, but is still small compared to other major global industries. Possibilities and pitfalls are discussed, along with examples of the checkered history of public and private sector attempts to promote space commerce. Making wise choices that have implications lasting decades is a daunting challenge, even when there’s broad agreement on a course of action. The book includes a chapter that warns: be careful what you wish for. Real-world examples (including the space shuttle and space station) demonstrate the difficulties of long-term strategic planning, and two futuristic thought experiments provide further illustration. The chapter concludes by demonstrating the long-term repercussions of poor choices, citing a current problem that has proven hard to fix despite widespread recognition that it needs fixing: export control for space technologies. If 21st century reality is driving us toward a course of action different from that of the Apollo/Cold War era, what should it look like, and what rationale should drive it? Voices of authority and advocacy for space ex

Trevor Manuel became South Africa's first black finance minister in 1996, a time when the economy threatened to spiral into a debt trap. It took five years before Manuel could present his first 'good news' Budget in Parliament. He described that Budget as a tale of 'irrevocable and powerful transformation', a tale of 'patience and obstinacy ... of determination and hope ... Of choice, not fate.' He could have been telling the tale of his own life. Born into a working-class family on the Cape Flats, his family's story embodied the fate that befell thousands of people classified coloured under apartheid. Homes lived in and lost under the cruel Group Areas Act, a mother who struggled to bring up her children on a garment worker's wages, clashes with gangsters who roamed the streets of the Flats, a truncated education. Manuel stared down fate - and internecine Western Cape politics - to become one of the most prominent anti-apartheid leaders in the internal resistance movement of the 1980s. He confronted apartheid's police and prisons with a boldness that sometimes bordered on recklessness. After Nelson Mandela was released from prison in 1990, Manuel rose quickly through the ranks of the African National Congress becoming a member of Mandela's first cabinet. When Mandela appointed him minister of finance in 1996, business leaders sneered at his lack of qualifications and experience. When he drove through a tough macroeconomic plan in a post-apartheid South Africa, some of his own constituency turned on him. 'Obstinate and patient', he saw out the worst until the economy began to turn. Under his stewardship, South Africa entered its longest growth period ever. By 2007, he was the world's longest serving minister of finance and, across the world, the most respected African finance minister.