“Based on years of research, Hersch offers a critical analysis of the complex and, he argues, flawed technological system that was the space shuttle. A lesson for both historians and engineers.”
Margaret Weitekamp, Curator, National Air and Space Museum, Smithsonian Institution
“In our own age of tech prophets and soaring futurism, Dark Star offers a much-needed cautionary tale about the promises, perils, and lost opportunities of our technological infatuations.”
Edward Jones-Imhotep, Professor of History of Science and Technology, University of Toronto; author of The Unreliable Nation: Hostile Nature and Technological Failure in the Cold War (The MIT Press)
“In this comprehensive book, Hersch shows how the flawed shuttle design emerged from the spaceplane enthusiasm and test pilot culture of NASA. The design was a compromise with the Air Force, which satisfied nobody.”
Daniel Hastings, former head of the MIT Aeronautics and Astronautics Department
Dark Star lives up to its subtitle as a 'new' history of the spacecraft. Hersch traces its evolution from unrealised World War Two weapons to Cold War plans for hypersonic flying machines, exploring the political climes that forged a vehicle whose precarious design set it up to fail from the outset…
Breakneck work schedules, silencing of dissent, removing rather than augmenting safety systems and a dearth of funding all come under Hersch's critical gaze in a book as fascinating as it is thought-provoking.”
BBC Sky at Night Magazine
