At the beginning of August, I started writing a story – Calliope’s Reach – set in a future around 2150 – 2200. The narrative is grounded in a landscape of space capitalism. The following week, I ran across the book New Space Capitalism [1], which connected with recent events, particularly SpaceX’s IPO.

What’s the drift? – cautious optimism for a better future. A stairway to the stars. There’s much history here, and Rainer Zitelmann covers the highlights, including the January 1986 Challenger disaster, which I watched on live TV. ( I was particularly interested in that launch because I had worked with one of the crew.)