****** - Verified Buyer
4.5
The growing University CubeSat community would be wise to read Past, Present...Future to benefit from the lessons learned in 'small' satellites larger than their own. The book provides extensive history, which I found very useful, and this context generates ideas for future innovations. The discussion of scaling in the 'Future' Chapter provides a useful framework and points of reference. Some of the ideas/technologies put forth for the Generation after Next are pretty far out there, but I have to tell myself that the current state of the art is far out relative to recent decades. Particularly relevant and detailed is the overview of The Aerospace Corp's picosat program and their approach to testing technologies on picosats in order to mitigate risk on larger missions and advance the exploitation of space more quickly and at lower cost. Amen.For a thorough volume which should serve as a reference over the years, the published did the authors no service by opting for thin paper (color photos show through on reverse page) and a weak binding. (It was printed in Argentina) ?! My copy arrived from Amazon with a broken spine, which I promptly shipped back for exchange. I mention this for the sake of the second edition.Lots of photos and charts are worth thousands of words each, and the extensive references allow readers to drill down for more detail on topics of interest. I hesitated given the price, but found the book a solid investment of my reading hours.
