Today's charity shop bargain...

[ffutures]

...was High Frontier: A New National Strategy, by Lt. Gen. Daniel O. Graham USA (ret.) and published by The Heritage Foundation in 1981.

Basically, it's the US military-industrial complex's hymn to space-based defences, and a major part of Reagan's Star Wars platform. It also has some very nice illustrations of space stations, super shuttles, etc., all of which would be very nice if they hadn't underestimated the costs by several orders of magnitude. No idea if it is rare or not, but there's a lot of stuff in it for anyone interested in space, or in creating a properly researched alternate history in which the US economy collapses under the expense of building it all.

Not sure what I want to do with it, but if I decide not to keep it I'm sure I'll find an SF author somewhere that wants it...

Comments

[landsmand.livejournal.com]

Not hugely rare and actually co-authored by Jerry Pournelle and Stefan Posony. Led almost directly to the Star Wars initiative. See also "The Strategy of Technology" by Graham and Pournelle.

If you get really hung up on it, see what you can dig up on Brilliant Pebbles and the orbital crowbars. Barking mad, but hugely entertaining.

[jeriendhal.livejournal.com]

And Jerry is still barking on his website that It Would Have Worked Too, If It Hadn't Been For Those Darned Kids Liberals/hidebound idiots at NASA!

[ffutures.livejournal.com]

Barking is definitely the word I'd use to describe Jerry Pournelle and Star Wars... Barking mad!

[murphys-lawyer.livejournal.com]

If the book's ISBN is 0-523-48078-4, it was co-authored by Jerry Pournelle and Robert A Heinlein. (Two bete noirs for the price of one...)

Jerry co-wrote The Strategy of Technology with Stefan Possony, and Francis Kane, and it can be found here.

I'm not at all certain Jerry's barking, but his ability to entertain is high: he's GoH at a furry convention this week-end.

[ffutures.livejournal.com]

No, the ISBN is 0-943070-00-7

[sharikkamur.livejournal.com]

I read the title and thought Oh, how 'Edge of Darkness'. I might have to investigate that one myself - it sounds useful near-future source material.