The Long Space Age

“Today’s race among private funders may not be as different from the 19th-century pursuit as people might think . . . Highly recommended.”—Choice

“[MacDonald] convincingly shows that early astronomical observation was not a separate phenomenon from the later Space Age, but a necessary precursor that should be seen as contiguous with it.”—Eh.net

MacDonald uncovers a rich, multi-century history of privately funded space exploration.”—Reason

"This is a critical new piece in the existing literature of the history of spaceflight, particularly for those scholars that are trying to understand how the current state of human spaceflight has emerged or even how space exploration has been empirically communicated to the public."—Shalina Chatlani, Quest: The History of Spaceflight Quarterly

“MacDonald makes a fascinating argument juxtaposing the relationship of post-Sputnik space activities with related efforts between the early-nineteenth century and the present. It is a remarkably new and different argument.”—Roger D. Launius, Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum

“A groundbreaking book that turns the conventional telling of space history on its head.  MacDonald convincingly shows that entrepreneurs and benefactors appeared first, alongside government support, not last.”—Howard McCurdy, author of Space and the American Imagination


"MacDonald’s book is a landmark work that lays out our multi-century human space expansion course."--S. Pete Worden, Former NASA Ames Center Director, now Chairman, Breakthrough Prize Foundation

"MacDonald has written a provocative new history of the “Long Space Age” that invites us to rethink both the motivations for space exploration and its shifting sources of its support. Based on considerable original economic analysis, he elegantly shows that the so-called new era of private spaceflight has a precedent dating back over a century.”—Asif Siddiqi, Fordham University