Book Review: The Engines of God

Reviewed by: Allen G. Taylor Title: The Engines of God Author: Jack McDevitt Format: Paperback Pages: 432 Publisher: Ace Date: 1995 Retail Price: $7.99 ISBN: 0441002846

The Engines of God is the first in a series of books featuring Priscilla “Hutch” Hutchins, a 23rd century star pilot who earns her living by ferrying archaeologists to star systems that once hosted alien civilizations. Strangely enough, there seem to be a lot more destroyed civilizations than there are thriving ones within about 100 light years of Earth. Enigmatic artifacts seem to tie together widely-separated star systems. The archaeologists set out to solve the puzzle. At Quraqua, a planet whose technological civilization went extinct only about a thousand years before the archaeologists arrived, tension arises between the scientists and the industrialists. The scientists want to study the artifacts left by the lost civilization, and the industrialists want to set off nuclear bombs at Quraqua’s poles to set in motion an irreversible process to terraform the planet. Enigmatic monuments on Quaraqua’s moon, in orbit around the inhabited planet in the Nok system, as well as on Saturn’s moon, Iapetus, point to the existence of an ancient starfaring race that had visited all three. This race apparently warned Quraqua of a powerful destructive threat to all civilized life. Hutch gets involved in the search for who the Monument Builders were and why they built the monuments that they did. Along the way, she shows resourcefulness and strength of character as she and her passengers are faced with a massive tsunami, predatory alien life forms, political intrigue, high-speed collisions in space, and ultimately the destroyer of worlds, the engines of god. I enjoyed this book on several levels. Hutch is an interesting and engaging character, with strengths and weaknesses that make her human and bring her to life. The other characters are not quite as well developed because the story is told from Hutch’s viewpoint. Plenty of action arises as the team of archaeologists faces threats due to human nature, bad luck, alien life forms, and their own lack of preparedness for the unexpected.   The primary quest of the book is to discover who the Monument Makers were, why they built the monuments, and where they came from. As the answers to these questions slowly start to fall into place, a larger question emerges: What had the Monument Makers feared, and where had they gone? This was immediately followed by an even larger question: Was the force that had apparently destroyed every civilization that humans had found on other worlds, a threat to Earth? Hutch and her surviving crewmates were about to find out. The question was whether they would live to tell anyone else. © 2008 Allen G. Taylor

This review first appeared on the Web site of the National Space Society, www.nss.org.

Book Review: 101 Outer Space Projects for the Evil Genius

Reviewed by: Allen G. Taylor Title: 101 Outer Space Projects for the Evil Genius Author: Dave Prochnow Reading Level: Pre-teen to adult Format: Paperback Pages: 300 Publisher: McGraw-Hill Date: April, 2007 Retail Price: $24.95 ISBN: 0071485481

The Evil Genius series of books is a tongue-in-cheek reference to those bad old science fiction movies that followed the original Frankenstein movie, which featured a mad scientific genius, bent on world domination, developing something frightfully dangerous.This book isn’t really about world domination, or even about frightfully dangerous inventions. It is specifically about projects the ordinary person can do with ordinary resources, all of which have some connection to outer space. Some of the projects described are potentially dangerous, if you don’t exercise common sense, and follow the cautions given in the book. A number of the projects are appropriate for the technically inclined pre-teen audience, while others are clearly designed for adults who have at least some experience building things.The book is divided into eleven chapters, covering eleven different aspects of space exploration. The areas covered are: Navigating, both on Earth and in space Building and launching model rockets Exploring the heavens via software and images from space Building radio receivers that detect the emissions of Jupiter and the Sun Participating in the search for extraterrestrial intelligence via SETI@HOME Viewing the night sky Building telescopes Building planetary rovers Building a space station (launch not included) Building a home planetarium Making convincing fake UFO photos That last topic definitely qualifies the book for its Evil moniker. Genuine UFO buffs believe the hoaxers give the whole field a bad name. The book is profusely illustrated. A step-by-step description of each project is given, and each step is accompanied by a photo of the current stage of construction. Unfortunately, the figures are not as good as I would have liked. They are black and white photos, taken by the author and printed on medium-quality paper. In many cases details described in the text are washed out. This is not a major problem, as the figures are clear enough for the reader to tell what is going on. Projects that I found particularly interesting were: Putting a CCD image sensor in a model rocket, complete with parachute recovery system, built from easily obtainable parts. Astrophotography, using an SLR camera, a big lens, and software that tells where to point it. Building several different radios that can be tuned to the sounds of space, from inexpensive kits. Assembling several different classes of telescope from kits. Mounting a camera on a telescope for images of planets and nebulae. Building a CCD camera from scrounged parts. Building high-capability programmable robot rovers using parts taken from toy vehicles. Some of the projects described are stand-alone efforts, but in other cases, items built in earlier projects are used in the construction of a more complex project. Out of the 101 projects described in the book, there are bound to be several that NSS members are likely to enjoy building, regardless of age or skill level. There are things that kids can do by themselves, things that a child and parent can work on together, and things that clearly fall into the adult class. Fun for all ages! © 2008 Allen G. Taylor

This review originally appeared on the Web site of the National Space Society, www.nss.org.

Book Review: The Lunar Exploration Scrapbook

Reviewed by: Allen G. Taylor

Title: The Lunar Exploration Scrapbook: A Pictorial History of Lunar Vehicles

Author: Robert Godwin

Format: Softcover

Pages: 224

Publisher: Apogee Books

Date: 2007

Retail Price: $36.95

ISBN: 978-1894959-69-8

 

This beautiful book would be a “coffee-table” book if only it was in a somewhat larger format and if it cost a lot more. Printed on high-quality glossy paper, every page contains illustrations and photos of a vast array of lunar vehicles, most of which have not been seen for over forty years.

Probably, like me, you have felt that you knew what vehicles were designed to take American astronauts to the Moon in the late 1960’s and early 1970’s. There was:

* the mighty Saturn V rocket, which powered the moonship off Earth and sent it hurtling toward the Moon

* the Apollo Command and Service Module (CSM), which ferried the astronauts between the Earth and the Moon

* the Lunar Module (LM), which landed on the Moon

* the Lunar Roving Vehicle (LRV), which enabled astronauts on later lunar landing missions to rod around, kicking up a lot of lunar dust in the process

 I guess I should have known that these marvelous machines did not spring fully formed into the minds of brilliant engineers at NASA and its contractors. When President Kennedy set the nation on a course to the Moon in his electrifying speech in 1961, there were a lot of different ideas in circulation as to the best way to get there.

In this book, Godwin takes us from the first serious concept of a lunar landing mission in 1938 through a fascinating tour of over 200 proposed vehicles. Most of these never made it off the drawing board. Others made it to full scale mockups and even to functional prototypes.

There was intense competition among NASA suppliers for the lucrative contracts that were let to produce the lunar vehicles. Many vehicle designs were funded by NASA study contracts, while others were self-funded by would-be contractors.

We often think of the Saturn V as the largest, most powerful rocket ever built, or even conceived. However, in the early stages of the Apollo program, the much more powerful Nova design was the preferred contender for the Moon landing mission. It would be powerful enough to take off from Earth and fly directly to the Moon, land and then fly back to Earth. The much smaller Saturn V, on the other hand, was not nearly powerful enough to do that. Instead, the Saturn-based Apollo missions that actually flew used the lunar orbital rendezvous (LOR) technique to achieve the mission with a much less massive vehicle. Only the relatively light LM would actually land on the moon. The CSM that had the power to send the crew back to Earth stayed in lunar orbit while the LM made its sortie to the lunar surface.

In addition to the Nova alternative to the Saturn family of boosters, there were many different designs for command modules ranging from two to six astronauts in capacity, and a similar multiplicity of lunar landers. There were habitats designed to sustain astronauts for anywhere from five to 180 days on the lunar surface. There were roving vehicles with two wheels, four wheels, six wheels, or no wheels. There were flying platforms and backpack rockets. In hindsight, many of these proposed designs seem outlandish or just plain impractical. However, in many cases, they were important steps along the way to the designs that ultimately flew and made history.

The vision and creativity of the many engineers who developed these marvelous concepts is an inspiration that should guide the efforts of the current generation of design engineers, who even now are designing the lunar vehicles that will take American astronauts back to the Moon. It is a shame that much of the energy, enthusiasm, and creativity that went into the designs of all those Apollo era space vehicles came to an end with the termination of the program after the safe return of Apollo 17 to Earth. Those drawing board lunar habitats were never occupied. The mobile labs never investigated conditions at a distance from the lander. No astronaut ever blasted off the lunar surface with a backpack rocket. Perhaps the dreams of these designers will finally come to pass when we once again set foot on the Moon’s surface.

Robert Godwin has done a signal service in producing this book, which is clearly a labor of love. He calls the names of many who were instrumental in getting us to the Moon, but who are now all but forgotten. He brings to life with beautiful color illustrations, designs that until now have existed only as blueprints. He reminds us of what might have been—and of what might yet be.

© 2007 Allen G. Taylor

This review originally appeared on the Web site of the National Space Society, www.nss.org.

 

Book Review: Janice Van Cleave’s Engineering for Every Kid

Title: Janice Van Cleave’s Engineering for Every Kid

Author: Janice Van Cleave

Format: Paperback

Pages: 205

Publisher: Jossey-Bass

Date: 2007

Retail Price: $14.95

ISBN: 978-0-471-47182-0

 

Engineering for Every Kid is the latest in Janice Van Cleave’s series of books that provide a fun introduction to a variety of science topics to children. This particular book is particularly relevant now, as engineering is vital to the continuing prosperity of our technology-based society as well as to the maintenance of the infrastructure that we all depend upon.

 

On October 4, 1957 I, along with millions of other kids was inspired by the launch of the world’s first artificial satellite, Sputnik I, by the Soviet Union. It seemed miraculous to see that tiny dot of light passing overhead, and realize that it was a machine that engineers had built. I wanted to be a part of that kind of achievement. Now the generation that was energized by Sputnik is approaching retirement age. Who will take the place of those engineers who designed the Apollo moon ships, the Viking Mars landers, the Cassini Saturn orbiter, and all the other machines that have taught us so much about the world we live in and the greater world we hope to live in, in the future? Who will design the bridges, the highways, the power plants, and the energy efficient cars that will be needed to replace the aging infrastructure we have today? We need young people with a passion for learning about the world and for using that knowledge to make the world better.

 

Engineering for Every Kid should be a required textbook at every elementary school in the country. Each chapter describes one of twenty-five different engineering disciplines, many of which did not exist when Sputnik was launched. For each discipline there is a set of exercises and a hands-on activity that the kids can do to drive the lesson home. Each chapter is illustrated with excellent drawings by Laurie Hamilton. The drawings help to focus the reader’s attention and also make the book more friendly and approachable. Throughout the text, new terms are rendered in bold type and are defined in a glossary at the back of the book.

 

Bottom line: Janice Cleave’s Engineering for Every Kid is a great way to get a young person interested in engineering. I would have loved it if it had been available when I was a kid. As it turns out, I went into engineering anyway, but not everyone is so lucky.

 

© 2007 Allen G. Taylor

This review originally appeared on the Web site of the National Space Society, www.nss.org.

Book Review: Red Lightning

Title: Red Lightning

Author: John Varley

Format: Paperback

Pages: 368

Publisher: Ace

Date: 2007

Retail Price: $7.99

ISBN: 0441014887

 

Twenty years after the events chronicled in Varley’s Red Thunder, the solar system is a very different place. Manny Garcia and Kelly Strickland have married, had two children, and moved to Mars to operate the Red Thunder Hotel. Mars has become a major tourist destination, served by squeezer-powered interplanetary cruise ships such as the Royal Caribbean Sovereign of the Planets. For this sequel to Red Thunder, the point of view character is teenage Ray Garcia-Strickland, a fairly typical Martian kid, despite the fact that his famous parents were members of the first crew to land on Mars.

 

Ray, like teenagers everywhere, is not totally enamored with his life on Mars, although he is convinced that life on Earth would be even worse. He has to confront life on Earth sooner than he would like when a large object, traveling at just slightly below the speed of light strikes the Atlantic Ocean, launching a tsunami that devastates the islands of the Caribbean and the entire East Coast of the United States. Ray’s grandmother owns and operates a beachfront hotel in Daytona Beach, Florida, one of the hardest hit communities. Ray, Manny, Kelly, Ray’s sister Elizabeth, and Ray’s girlfriend Evangeline book passage to Earth on the Sovereign of the Planets to do what they can to rescue grandma. The devastation they encounter is graphic, informed as it is by Varley’s study of the Sumatra earthquake and subsequent tsunami of 2004. In this case, however, the damage and loss of life is far greater. When two massive objects collide at close to the speed of light, bad things happen.

 

Although the damage caused by the tsunami was horrific, things were about to get worse. Ray’s “Uncle” Jubal Broussard thought the disaster was his fault and disappeared, setting off a chain of events that put powerful groups on Earth in conflict with each other, with Mars, and particularly with Ray’s family. The shadowy quasi-governmental groups trying to capture Jubal would stop at nothing to find him, and Ray’s family, particularly Ray himself, was believed to be the key to locating him.

 

Red Lightning, informed as it is by 9/11, the Indian Ocean tsunami, and the recent erosion of freedoms in America in the name of Homeland Security, paints a dark vision of the future, but with rays of hope (Rays of hope?) personified by courageous individuals such as Travis and Jubal Broussard and every member of the Garcia-Strickland clan. Like Red Thunder, this book is very reminiscent of the work of Robert A. Heinlein. Independent-minded people summon inner strength to break out of the control of a society that is becoming progressively more constricting. Will virtue triumph over the forces of evil? Maybe. The battle is never completely won.

 

 

© 2007 Allen G. Taylor

This review originally appeared on the Web site of the National Space Society, www.nss.org.

Book Review: Red Thunder

Title: Red Thunder 

Author: John Varley
Format: Paperback
Pages: 416
Publisher: Ace
Date: 2004
Retail Price: $7.99
ISBN: 0441011624

In Red Thunder, Hugo and Nebula award-winning author John Varley has written a novel in the vein of Robert A. Heinlein’s classic juvenile novels such as Rocket Ship Galileo, Space Cadet, and Have Spacesuit, Will Travel, but updated to the present. As in the Heinlein novels, ordinary young people are thrust into a decidedly extraordinary situation.

The story takes place in a near future in which the Lockheed Martin VentureStar successor to the space shuttle was not cancelled and VentureStars lift from Cape Kennedy on a weekly basis, headed for the space station. Most things are pretty much as they are in our world in the first decade of the 21st century. One visible difference is the presence of automated highways that take control of your car and whisk you from point A to point B at high speed in bumper-to-bumper traffic. The point of view character is Manny Garcia, a 19 year old Cuban-American who recently graduated from the fictional Gus Grissom High School in Daytona Beach, Florida. He and his mother run the iconic Blast-Off Motel, a relic of sixties kitsch left over from the early days of America’s space program.

The story gets rolling when Manny, his African-American friend Dak, and their girlfriends Kelly and Alicia, are joyriding on the beach in Dak’s highly customized pickup, Blue Thunder. They narrowly avoid running over a passed-out drunk lying in the sand. The drunk turns out to be a Cajun ex-astronaut, Travis Broussard, who had been the most highly skilled pilot in the corps until his drinking problem booted him out of NASA. After the kids take Travis home, things get interesting.

Travis lives with his genius cousin Jubal, who was nearly killed by his deranged and abusive father. Jubal suffered serious brain damage, which makes him appear to be retarded, but his streak of genius survives. He discovers a way of extracting unlimited energy from another dimension of space-time, which holds the promise of opening up the solar system.

Jubal’s discovery comes none too soon, as both Chinese and American missions are headed to Mars, with the Chinese poised to land first. The American ship is powered by Franklin Chang-Diaz’ VASIMR drive and Jubal has concluded that it will likely fail on the long trip, killing all the astronauts on board, including Travis’s ex-wife, Holly.

Jubal, Travis, and the four young friends believe that Americans should be the first to land on Mars, so the only sensible course is to build a Mars ship using Jubal’s squeezer drive to beat the Chinese to Mars and rescue the Americans if their ship fails. That being the case, four teenagers, a recently dried out alcoholic, and a badly damaged genius proceed to build Red Thunder, a squeezer-powered ship that can accelerate continuously at 1 g halfway to Mars, then flip over and decelerate to rendezvous with the Red Planet, all in the space of three days.

As you might expect, there are a number of challenges that work to prevent the team from ever lifting off in Red Thunder, let alone successfully beating the Chinese to Mars or rescuing imperiled NASA astronauts. Manny’s mother is none too keen on having her son fly off to Mars with a recovering alcoholic. Kelly’s father would go ballistic if he were to find out his daughter was planning to really go ballistic. The FBI and the U.S. Coast Guard also supplied serious obstacles. The team of adventurers, with the help of various Broussards and other family members, works together to face the challenges as they arise.

I enjoyed this story a lot. It brought back memories of the Heinlein stories that fired my interest in space travel a half century ago. The technical details are accurate. Orbital mechanics is correctly covered as are life support, propulsion, and the problems, both physical and psychological, that are likely to arise on a conventional three month trip to Mars, such as those undertaken by the Chinese and NASA astronauts. Jubal’s squeezer drive is, of course, as fanciful as H.G. Wells’ cavorite anti-gravity propulsion was a century ago. The book shows China to be NASA’s likeliest rival in manned space travel to the Moon and beyond, and also shows the US government’s cool attitude toward private space activity. Perhaps our current reality, in which VentureStar never made it off the ground, is better after all. Private space ventures are sprouting up all over, and there is the potential at least that China may be a valuable partner in space rather than a rival. It would indeed be wonderful if the first human being to set foot on Mars could truthfully say, “We come in peace for all mankind.”

© 2007 Allen G. Taylor

This review originally appeared on the Web site of the National Space Society, www.nss.org.

Book Review: Saturn

Saturn

by Alan Lawrie, with Robert Godwin

Apogee Books, 2006

ISBN 1-894959-19-4

$27.95 USD

 

Reviewed by Allen G. Taylor

This book, ironically written by an Englishman, is the definitive reference work on what is arguably the crowning achievement of American aerospace technology, the Saturn V Moon rocket. Approximately half of the 328-page book consists of reprints of original documents that had very limited circulation, and that now are virtually impossible to find. The rest of the book is the product of painstaking research by Lawrie that tracks down the construction and history of every major component of the Saturn V, that was ever built. Some of these were test articles, some actually flew, and others were either scrapped or ended up as museum displays. It is all here, the complete manufacturing and test records.

The first of the reprinted documents is NASA’s Saturn V News Reference, which was prepared for the press in August 1967. At 125 pages, it provides detailed descriptions of every major component of the Saturn V, along with the function of each. The intent of the document was to enhance the accuracy of accounts of the Moon program that would be appearing in the press.

The second of the reprinted documents is the Saturn V Payload Planner’s Guide, dated November 1965. It was created by the Douglas Missile & Space Systems Division in Huntington Beach, California. For the space enthusiast, reading the Payload Planner’s Guide is a bittersweet experience. It is a reminder of what might have been. In November 1965, no one could have anticipated how short the operational lifetime of the Saturn V would be. Of course the primary objective was to build a vehicle that would launch American astronauts to the Moon. But, beyond that, the vehicle’s designers envisioned the Saturn V as a launch vehicle that would open up the Solar System. They anticipated launching space stations into Earth orbit, large payloads into geosynchronous orbit, probes to all the planets, the asteroids, and into interstellar space. Detailed information is given about the specifications and performance of the Saturn V, so that mission planners could start designing missions that went far beyond footprints and flags on the Moon. No one could conceive then that the United States would throw away the capability that the Saturn V represented after sending only nine crews to the Moon (only six of which landed), and one Skylab space station into Earth orbit. Additional vehicles were built, but never launched. Today they lie on display at the Johnson Space Center in Texas, the Marshall Space Center in Alabama, and the Kennedy Space Center in Florida, bearing mute testimony to a vision that shone long enough to take humanity to the Moon, but then flickered out. A vehicle with the power to explore the solar system was retired in favor of an Earth-to-orbit delivery truck called the space shuttle.

Interesting as the Saturn V News Reference and the Saturn V Payload Planner’s Guide are, the real work that went into the production of this book was the compilation of the material in The Complete Manufacturing and Test Records. Every engine and stage is tracked. We are told where each one started, how it was tested, and in many cases, when it flew. Many engines and stages that were tested never flew. They served an important purpose however, exposing flaws that were corrected in the flight articles that came later.

The book is profusely illustrated, with many photos of transport and testing of components, that have never been available to the public before. In addition to the many black and white photos, there are eight full-page color plates on glossy paper. An additional bonus is a DVD, showing engines being transported, prepared for testing, and test fired. Strangely, these scenes of test operations, taking place at various facilities around the country, are accompanied by an audio recording of the countdown to launch of the Apollo 11 Moon landing mission. The final minutes of the countdown are synchronized with 16mm film footage of the launch, up through burnout of the first stage and ignition of the second stage, on the way to the Moon. Views of various engines, being tested at various facilities, graphically convey the awesome power of these engines, and by extension, of the vehicle they would propel beyond the grasp of Earth’s gravity.

Don’t be mistaken. This book is not about the Apollo Moon missions. It is about the solid body of work that went into testing the hardware that made those missions possible. Coverage stops upon delivery of those components to Cape Kennedy, where they were assembled and launched. This book is a “must have” for anyone who is interested in the first part of the long arduous road that the Saturn V launch vehicle traveled on its way to the Moon. The journey started long before the completed Moon ship rolled out of the Vehicle Assembly Building at Cape Kennedy on its crawler and moved toward the launch pad. Many engines and many stages were used up in the testing program, before the parts that ultimately went into Apollo 11 made their historic journey, to the Moon and into the history books.

This review first appeared at www.nss.org, the Web site of the National Space Society.

Book Review: Powersat

Reviewed by: Allen G. Taylor

Title: Powersat

Author: Ben Bova

Format: Softcover

Pages: 400

Publisher: Tom Doherty Associates, LLC

Date: 2005

Retail Price: $7.99

ISBN: 0765315661

Ben Bova’s popular Grand Tour series of novels details humanity’s adventures in the near future, exploring and settling the solar system. After writing about Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, the Moon, and the asteroids, Bova finally got around to writing about Earth. Set in the near future, Powersat follows astronaut-turned-businessman Dan Randolph as he tries to put Earth’s first production solar power satellite (SPS) into operation. Middle-Eastern terrorists, international oil companies, and eco-Luddites all want to see him fail, while NASA and the rest of the Federal bureaucracy are not particularly keen to see a private company do what they could not. Randolph has an ally in Senator Jane Thornton, an old flame, who is now running the presidential campaign of Morgan Scanwell, the governor of Texas.

A dramatic spaceplane breakup on reentry looks like a malfunction on its first piloted orbital flight, but turns out to be sabotage by a terrorist cell with powerful backing from oil billionaire Asim al-Bashir. Al-Bashir finds common cause with an American oil baron, who is unaware his plans for Randolph’s power satellite go far beyond merely destroying it. Al-Bashir’s intent is to use the satellite to strike a mortal blow against America, and as a side effect, kill the idea of power satellites forever.

More a techno-thriller in the mold of Tom Clancy than a classic science fiction novel, Powersat has engaging characters with complex relationships that affect the way they deal with the challenges they face. Strong women play key roles and have a major effect on the outcome. Tension builds steadily throughout the story as the stakes rise higher and higher, climaxing 22,236 miles above the Earth.

One thing I liked about this novel is that it holds up for examination, some of the aspects of solar power satellites that proponents of SPS usually do not talk about. One such aspect is the political power of groups that would not like to see a viable competitor of oil arise. Another aspect is how to protect a gigantic machine, stationary in the sky like a sitting duck, from hostile acts. A final question is whether it is really possible to channel the multi-gigawatt microwave beam from the satellite into a killing death ray. If so, how could this be prevented?

Aside from providing an engaging read that pulls you in, Bova is also scrupulously accurate in the technical details of spaceplane reentry, what a Soyuz (yes, Soyuz!) launch feels like, and spacewalks on a large orbital structure. The one place where he waves his magic wand is in the area of cheap access to space. Somehow Dan Randolph’s company is able to build and maintain an acres-wide solar power satellite in geosynchronous orbit (GEO), using spaceplanes on solid rocket boosters to low-Earth orbit (LEO) and orbital transfer craft from LEO to GEO. How the economics of this transportation system relates to the cost of the power beamed from space is never discussed.

Powersat hits on all cylinders. There are characters to identify and empathize with. There are villains to despise. There is high tension and real danger. There is accurate description of space hardware and what it is like to use it. There is even a scenario that might give people pause about the wisdom of putting an extremely powerful energy source directly over their heads. There is definitely food for thought.

 This review first appeared on www.nss.org, the Web site of the National Space Society

Book Review: Welcome to Biotech Nation

Welcome to Biotech Nation: My Unexpected Odyssey into the Land of Small Molecules, Lean Genes, and Big Ideas

by Moira A. Gunn, PhD.

$24.95

Amacom

ISBN 0-8144-0923-7

 Reviewed by Allen G. Taylor 

For a number of years, Moira Gunn has hosted a technology-oriented interview program on National Public Radio, named Tech Nation. The program has international reach, airing weekly on 200 public radio stations, on Sirius Satellite Radio, and to 133 nations on Armed Forces Radio. With a PhD in Mechanical Engineering and a Masters degree in computer science, Ms. Gunn has the chops to ask the important questions to the tech luminaries that she interviews. In 2004 she decided to leap out of her comfort zone and to add a biotechnology component to her program. It was evident then and is even more evident today that biotechnology was growing in importance and was without a doubt THE NEXT BIG THING in technology. The only problem was Moira’s total lack of background in biotech. Undeterred by her inexperience, she launched a new segment of her program named Biotech Nation.

 

Perhaps you have heard some of the Biotech Nation broadcasts, which, until recently, aired on Oregon Public Broadcasting on Friday evenings. OPB has shaken up its schedule and Tech Nation was one of the shows that disappeared. As one of the few programs on public radio, or any radio for that matter, that discusses technology, Moira’s program deserves to be heard. If you feel so inclined, you might contact OPB management (ceo@opb.org) and ask that Tech Nation be reinstated.

 

Moira’s new book, Welcome to Biotech Nation, is the story behind the program. It describes how Moira got pulled into biotech, almost without realizing what was happening. It talks about the interesting characters she has met in the biotech industry, the hurdles she had to leap over to interview them, and some of the startling facts she learned about biotechnology and about human health and disease. Moira’s breezy style makes the book a fast read as well as an informative one. Each chapter is a story that shows a side of biotechnology that we do not often see. Moira describes those parts of her encounters with her interviewees and with other industry bigwigs that never showed up on the radio program. For engineers who have always wondered what a career as a broadcast journalist would be like, Welcome to Biotech Nation relates one engineer’s experience.