In 2005, three years before its first successful orbital launch, a fledgling space startup called SpaceX petitioned the US government to let it use the storied Cape Canaveral launchpad once home to the Apollo space program.
Old-school space firms like Boeing and Lockheed Martin bristled at the thought and lobbied aggressively to dam the deal.
Executives at those firms had a dim view of the corporate and resented founder Elon Musk. “He was not deferential, but brash,” writes Eric Berger in his recent book “Reentry: SpaceX, Elon Musk, and the Reusable Rockets that Launched a Second Space Age,” summing up the sensation on the time, “Do you actually need to let this guy onto the holy grounds of America’s largest and oldest spaceport?”
Their efforts failed, and SpaceX got access to the Cape.
Lower than 20 years later, Berger writes, “Elon Musk and his rocket company now stand alone, atop the hierarchy of spaceflight.”
The corporate’s workhorse Falcon launch vehicle, the primary industrial reusable rocket and the inspiration for the book’s title, now delivers more orbital payloads than the governments of Russia, China and private-sector competitors like Boeing and Lockheed Martin combined.
NASA relies almost exclusively on SpaceX to ferry astronauts and supplies to the International Space Station (ISS).
The corporate’s Starlink satellites can deliver web to almost anyone anywhere on the earth, including to the battlefields of Ukraine.
Its Starship rocket is the most important to ever fly and should someday ferry astronauts to the Moon, Mars and beyond.
SpaceX recently accomplished the world’s first ever industrial spacewalk, and in a little bit of poetic justice, when Boeing’s troubled Starliner spacecraft bumped into technical difficulties in August of this yr by itself journey to the ISS, SpaceX got the decision to bail them out and produce the astronauts safely home.
SpaceX has steamrolled everyone. David has change into Goliath, says Berger.
Over the a long time, Berger writes, the world has modified its mind about Elon Musk, SpaceX’s founder.
He began as an odd curiosity, then a widely admired entrepreneur, and today he’s now a deeply divisive figure whose political opinions and business ties, says Berger, might eventually put him at odds with the U.S. government, forcing a “reckoning.”
How did this all occur?
Reentry picks up where Berger’s first book Liftoff left off, within the lead as much as the primary launch of the Falcon 9 rocket. The book reveals much about what made SpaceX so successful.
The primary reason is Elon Musk, whose singular vision and hard-driving leadership propelled SpaceX through its many ups and downs.
It was Musk, for instance, who pushed relentlessly for SpaceX to master reusable rockets, despite industry doubters and the grumblings of his own engineers.
It was Musk who decided to announce the Starship project (a k a the Mars mission) and launch the Starlink satellite network at the identical time.
It was also Musk who revolutionized the economics of space.
Previously, it was a “cost-plus” industry, Berger says, where firms bid on projects and got paid even when the work was massively over budget or overdue. SpaceX modified that model by bringing a startup mentality to the industry. As former SpaceX executive John Couluris recounts, “we were scrappy.”
The second reason for its success is the people. SpaceX’s many sensible engineers and business leaders would spend mornings negotiating with NASA, and afternoons, nights and weekends troubleshooting countless technical challenges.
Gwynne Shotwell, one in every of SpaceX’s first employees and a senior executive, negotiated and won a cargo development contract from NASA in 2006, which financially saved SpaceX, setting it on a path for future success.
Then there was Holly Ridings, a NASA flight director who oversaw the SpaceX capsule Dragon’s first docking with ISS in May of 2012, making a gutsy call in the midst of the flight with all the pieces on the road that paid off. She later became NASA’s first female chief flight director. The list goes on.
As the corporate racked up pioneering firsts, it became the primary destination for sensible and aspiring rocketeers who each wanted to construct stuff — and were motivated by SpaceX’s mission to make humanity an interplanetary species.
The ultimate reason for the corporate’s success was its relationship with NASA. While SpaceX relied on NASA within the early days for its first contracts, NASA was counting on them too.
With the Shuttle spacecraft being decommissioned, the brand new Obama administration placed a bet on believing SpaceX could do things higher. NASA Deputy Administrator Lori Garver said of the primary Falcon 9 launch in 2010, “I used to be well aware that not only my very own popularity, however the success or failure of the Obama Administration’s space policy, can be largely determined by the end result of the SpaceX launch.”
NASA’s support prolonged beyond funding. NASA engineers worked in close partnership with SpaceX from the primary Falcon 9 launch to the primary unmanned Dragon capsule to the Dragon Crew which ferried astronauts to the ISS.
NASA and SpaceX have a “fantastically fruitful relationship” that’s lasted a long time, says Berger.
Within the second half of the book, the corporate really starts hitting its stride.
To be certain, there have been setbacks, notably two (non-fatal) disasters that grounded its Falcon 9 for greater than a yr, but overall, the speed of progress from 2012 until today was remarkable: Within the last decade, the corporate mastered reusable rockets, launched Starlink, built and flew the largest rocket ever, and commenced ferrying astronauts to the ISS.
Musk stays at center stage throughout, pushing his team and reminding them of the larger mission.
“We will not be going to Mars in my lifetime, or yours, if we don’t get our act together and take this primary step,” Musk said after one other failed attempt at re-entry..
For all of the well-earned controversy about Musk, one can’t query his sincerity around space. He’s clearly driven by a much bigger purpose: if SpaceX makes a boatload of cash, but doesn’t reach Mars, the corporate has failed, in Musk’s eyes.
Nothing feels unachievable at SpaceX, which is maybe why it appears able to doing the not possible.
Berger is a veteran space reporter and the senior space editor on the tech news site Ars Technica with a scientific mind who clearly relishes the technical nuts and bolts of rocketry.
Readers will find out how SpaceX keeps rocket fuel in a stable state, so it doesn’t explode on the launchpad and find out how to get well a capsule from the ocean without losing the spacecraft at sea.
You’ll find out how adjustable “Grid-fins” help stabilize the spacecraft on re-entry and the way laser guidance systems (LIDAR) might help two spacecraft dock seamlessly as they hurtle through space.
Or find out how to 3D print an area helmet and find out how to manufacture rocket fuel on Mars.
Reentry is a blast (pun intended), nevertheless it ends on a cautionary note. SpaceX has not lost its founder mentality, Berger writes, but he worries Musk could also be getting distracted from the larger mission.
Referring to Musk’s Twitter purchase and his recent inflammatory political comments, Berger asks, “What the hell are you doing, Elon?”
After reading about what Musk was in a position to achieve within the 20 years before buying Twitter, you could end up asking the identical thing.
Alex Tapscott, creator of Web3: Charting the Web’s Next Economic and Cultural Frontier and Managing Director of the Digital Asset Group, a division of Ninepoint Partners LP (edited)
In 2005, three years before its first successful orbital launch, a fledgling space startup called SpaceX petitioned the US government to let it use the storied Cape Canaveral launchpad once home to the Apollo space program.
Old-school space firms like Boeing and Lockheed Martin bristled at the thought and lobbied aggressively to dam the deal.
Executives at those firms had a dim view of the corporate and resented founder Elon Musk. “He was not deferential, but brash,” writes Eric Berger in his recent book “Reentry: SpaceX, Elon Musk, and the Reusable Rockets that Launched a Second Space Age,” summing up the sensation on the time, “Do you actually need to let this guy onto the holy grounds of America’s largest and oldest spaceport?”
Their efforts failed, and SpaceX got access to the Cape.
Lower than 20 years later, Berger writes, “Elon Musk and his rocket company now stand alone, atop the hierarchy of spaceflight.”
The corporate’s workhorse Falcon launch vehicle, the primary industrial reusable rocket and the inspiration for the book’s title, now delivers more orbital payloads than the governments of Russia, China and private-sector competitors like Boeing and Lockheed Martin combined.
NASA relies almost exclusively on SpaceX to ferry astronauts and supplies to the International Space Station (ISS).
The corporate’s Starlink satellites can deliver web to almost anyone anywhere on the earth, including to the battlefields of Ukraine.
Its Starship rocket is the most important to ever fly and should someday ferry astronauts to the Moon, Mars and beyond.
SpaceX recently accomplished the world’s first ever industrial spacewalk, and in a little bit of poetic justice, when Boeing’s troubled Starliner spacecraft bumped into technical difficulties in August of this yr by itself journey to the ISS, SpaceX got the decision to bail them out and produce the astronauts safely home.
SpaceX has steamrolled everyone. David has change into Goliath, says Berger.
Over the a long time, Berger writes, the world has modified its mind about Elon Musk, SpaceX’s founder.
He began as an odd curiosity, then a widely admired entrepreneur, and today he’s now a deeply divisive figure whose political opinions and business ties, says Berger, might eventually put him at odds with the U.S. government, forcing a “reckoning.”
How did this all occur?
Reentry picks up where Berger’s first book Liftoff left off, within the lead as much as the primary launch of the Falcon 9 rocket. The book reveals much about what made SpaceX so successful.
The primary reason is Elon Musk, whose singular vision and hard-driving leadership propelled SpaceX through its many ups and downs.
It was Musk, for instance, who pushed relentlessly for SpaceX to master reusable rockets, despite industry doubters and the grumblings of his own engineers.
It was Musk who decided to announce the Starship project (a k a the Mars mission) and launch the Starlink satellite network at the identical time.
It was also Musk who revolutionized the economics of space.
Previously, it was a “cost-plus” industry, Berger says, where firms bid on projects and got paid even when the work was massively over budget or overdue. SpaceX modified that model by bringing a startup mentality to the industry. As former SpaceX executive John Couluris recounts, “we were scrappy.”
The second reason for its success is the people. SpaceX’s many sensible engineers and business leaders would spend mornings negotiating with NASA, and afternoons, nights and weekends troubleshooting countless technical challenges.
Gwynne Shotwell, one in every of SpaceX’s first employees and a senior executive, negotiated and won a cargo development contract from NASA in 2006, which financially saved SpaceX, setting it on a path for future success.
Then there was Holly Ridings, a NASA flight director who oversaw the SpaceX capsule Dragon’s first docking with ISS in May of 2012, making a gutsy call in the midst of the flight with all the pieces on the road that paid off. She later became NASA’s first female chief flight director. The list goes on.
As the corporate racked up pioneering firsts, it became the primary destination for sensible and aspiring rocketeers who each wanted to construct stuff — and were motivated by SpaceX’s mission to make humanity an interplanetary species.
The ultimate reason for the corporate’s success was its relationship with NASA. While SpaceX relied on NASA within the early days for its first contracts, NASA was counting on them too.
With the Shuttle spacecraft being decommissioned, the brand new Obama administration placed a bet on believing SpaceX could do things higher. NASA Deputy Administrator Lori Garver said of the primary Falcon 9 launch in 2010, “I used to be well aware that not only my very own popularity, however the success or failure of the Obama Administration’s space policy, can be largely determined by the end result of the SpaceX launch.”
NASA’s support prolonged beyond funding. NASA engineers worked in close partnership with SpaceX from the primary Falcon 9 launch to the primary unmanned Dragon capsule to the Dragon Crew which ferried astronauts to the ISS.
NASA and SpaceX have a “fantastically fruitful relationship” that’s lasted a long time, says Berger.
Within the second half of the book, the corporate really starts hitting its stride.
To be certain, there have been setbacks, notably two (non-fatal) disasters that grounded its Falcon 9 for greater than a yr, but overall, the speed of progress from 2012 until today was remarkable: Within the last decade, the corporate mastered reusable rockets, launched Starlink, built and flew the largest rocket ever, and commenced ferrying astronauts to the ISS.
Musk stays at center stage throughout, pushing his team and reminding them of the larger mission.
“We will not be going to Mars in my lifetime, or yours, if we don’t get our act together and take this primary step,” Musk said after one other failed attempt at re-entry..
For all of the well-earned controversy about Musk, one can’t query his sincerity around space. He’s clearly driven by a much bigger purpose: if SpaceX makes a boatload of cash, but doesn’t reach Mars, the corporate has failed, in Musk’s eyes.
Nothing feels unachievable at SpaceX, which is maybe why it appears able to doing the not possible.
Berger is a veteran space reporter and the senior space editor on the tech news site Ars Technica with a scientific mind who clearly relishes the technical nuts and bolts of rocketry.
Readers will find out how SpaceX keeps rocket fuel in a stable state, so it doesn’t explode on the launchpad and find out how to get well a capsule from the ocean without losing the spacecraft at sea.
You’ll find out how adjustable “Grid-fins” help stabilize the spacecraft on re-entry and the way laser guidance systems (LIDAR) might help two spacecraft dock seamlessly as they hurtle through space.
Or find out how to 3D print an area helmet and find out how to manufacture rocket fuel on Mars.
Reentry is a blast (pun intended), nevertheless it ends on a cautionary note. SpaceX has not lost its founder mentality, Berger writes, but he worries Musk could also be getting distracted from the larger mission.
Referring to Musk’s Twitter purchase and his recent inflammatory political comments, Berger asks, “What the hell are you doing, Elon?”
After reading about what Musk was in a position to achieve within the 20 years before buying Twitter, you could end up asking the identical thing.
Alex Tapscott, creator of Web3: Charting the Web’s Next Economic and Cultural Frontier and Managing Director of the Digital Asset Group, a division of Ninepoint Partners LP (edited)
