Abstract:
LAUNCH OUT is a futuristic, science-based novel about space enterprise, lunar industrialization, and settlement. This mind-expanding volume of 305 pages centers on leadership from private developers of an industrial park, observatory, and colony on the Moon by year 2010. Its sixteen chapters and ten illustrations focus on such efforts by two high tech companies, one based in La Jolla, California, and the other in Kyoto, Japan. Inspired by their dynamic and visionary CEOs, R. J. Delahunt of Pacific Interplanetary Enterprises and Kazuo Yamamoto of Nippon Interplanetary Services, an international consortium, the Global Space Trust, is formed to sponsor this high frontier venture. Dedicated to the seven heroic crew members of shuttle orbiters, Challenger and Columbia, the book focuses on synergistic planning and actions to return humans permanently to the Moon in this 21st Century. The premise is that if taxpayers are to get return on investment from Apollo mission expenditures some thirty years ago, strategic alliances must be formed not only between the private and public sectors, but also among world corporations, universities, and research institutes. The story covers two decades of activities by space entrepreneurs to prepare, place, and support sixteen technauts or workers on the Moon. Through the device of flashbacks, the reader learns the saga behind these spacefarers and their robotic helpers once they reach the lunar surface. The economic rationale for this macroproject to build and operate LUNAR WORLD, is vividly described. The plot maintains that humanity’s very survival and progress motivates us to go offworld not just to explore, but to utilize space resources, such as lunar solar energy. For this to happen in real time, a LUNAR ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT AUTHORITY coordinates these international efforts.