The Space Barons

by Christian Davenport

  AS IT RECOVERED from its explosion and moved through 2017, SpaceX screamed ahead, full force, racing through its backlog of seventy missions, worth some $10 billion. With six thousand employees, it at one point flew back-to-back missions within forty-eight hours, as it gobbled up a larger share of the international launch market.

  SpaceX was struggling, however, with its Falcon Heavy rocket. It was years behind schedule and Musk would admit that the heavy-lift rocket, which had a total of twenty-seven engines that all had to fire at once, was “way, way more difficult than we originally thought. We were pretty naive about that.” And he warned that the first launch could end up in a fireball.

  “I hope it makes it far enough away from the pad that it does not cause pad damage. I would consider even that a win, to be honest,” he said. “Major pucker factor, really. There’s no other way to describe it.”

  In the meantime, SpaceX was struggling to meet NASA’s rigorous requirements for the Dragon spacecraft that would fly astronauts to the space station. At NASA, there was a feeling among some that all of Musk’s Mars talk was a distraction when what he really needed to focus on was flying the agency’s most precious cargo—humans—to the space station. The agency had taken a huge gamble by selecting SpaceX, and it wasn’t about to let its astronauts get on the Falcon 9, which had blown up twice, unless it felt confident the rocket was safe.

  Musk said that was SpaceX’s top priority, and had pushed back its timeline for Mars to focus on flying crews to the station. But as if colonizing Mars weren’t enough, he was also planning to expand the company’s already outsize ambitions, and rewrite its future. In early 2017, he made a surprise announcement that it had added a new destination to its itinerary, one it had eschewed up until now: the moon.

  The mission would take two private citizens on a tourist trip that would orbit the moon and “travel faster and further into the Solar System than any before them,” Musk announced.

  Musk refused to name the passengers or how much they would pay, but he said the mission would be another step in “exceeding the high-water mark that was set in 1969 with the Apollo program.” They wouldn’t land on the lunar surface, but the weeklong trip would mark the first time humans had left low Earth orbit in decades.

  It wasn’t as challenging as Mars, but a lunar mission was also exceedingly difficult—and ambitious, considering that the company still hadn’t flown anyone. The trip would take the passengers well past the moon, some 300,000 miles away, on a circumlunar trajectory, where it would use the moon’s gravity to slingshot it back home.

  Like the takeoff, the return would be perilous. The spacecraft would be flying as much as 40 percent faster as it hit Earth’s atmosphere than would a return trip from the space station. And it had a very narrow window to it, or else it would bounce off the atmosphere and skip off into space.

  IN GUADALAJARA, MUSK had unveiled a behemoth of a rocket that was so ambitious and mind-bogglingly large that critics said it was detached from reality. Since then, he had done some editing, and he presented a revised plan in September 2017 to build a massive, but more reasonably sized, version of what he called the BFR, or Big Fucking Rocket.

  But while its size had been scaled back, its ambitions had not. In addition to helping create a city on the Red Planet, the new BFR would be capable of helping create a base camp on the moon.

  “It’s 2017; we should have a lunar base by now,” he said during a speech. “What the hell has been going on?”

  In a surprise twist, he also said that the massive rocket and spaceship, which would have more pressurized passenger space than an Airbus A380 airplane, could also fly people anywhere across the globe in less than an hour. Traveling at a maximum speed of nearly 17,000 mph above Earth’s atmosphere, a trip from New York to Shanghai, for example, would take thirty-nine minutes, he said. Los Angeles to New York could be done in twenty-five.

  “If we’re building this thing to go to the moon and Mars, why not go other places as well?” he asked.

  The new system would be capable of flying astronauts and cargo on an array of missions, including to the International Space Station in low Earth orbit. It could also launch satellites, he said, all of which would allow it to effectively replace the Falcon 9, Falcon Heavy, and Dragon spacecraft. In other words, after disrupting the industry, SpaceX would now attempt to disrupt itself.

  But he made it clear that Mars remained the ultimate goal. During his talk, a chart showed that SpaceX planned to fly two cargo missions to Mars by 2022, a very ambitious timeline.

  “That’s not a typo,” he said, but allowed: “It is aspirational.”

  By 2024, he said the company could fly four more ships to Mars, two with about one hundred human passengers each, sleeping two or three to a cabin, and two more cargo-only ships.

  SpaceX had proven itself again and again in a series of improbable feats. It had a string of successful launches. It had pulled off landings no one thought possible. It had competed, and won, against the Alliance. It had had its failures, but had bounced back each time with triumphant launches.

  And now as the hare tore down the track, making yet another audacious prediction that blurred the line between reality and fantasy, something remarkable was happening, at least in some corners.

  People were starting to believe.

  AS MUSK ANNOUNCED his plans to go to the moon, Bezos had been secretly talking to NASA about a lunar mission of his own.

  Blue Origin distributed a secret plan it called “Blue Moon” to the leadership of NASA, urging it to back an Amazon-like delivery service that would bring cargo and supplies in support of a “future human settlement” of the lunar surface.

  “It is time for America to return to the Moon—this time to stay,” Bezos told the Washington Post after it obtained a copy of the seven-page report. “A permanently inhabited lunar settlement is a difficult and worthy objective.” Flights to the moon could begin by 2020, he said, but only in partnership with the space agency. But he was “ready to invest my own money alongside NASA to make it happen.”

  As President Obama had pointed NASA toward Mars, he said of the moon that “we have been there before.” It was technically true; men had left “flags and footprints” on the moon. But they hadn’t been there in the permanent way Bezos and others were now proposing.

  Bezos planned on landing cargo in a series of missions at Shackleton Crater at the moon’s south pole, where there was nearly continuous sunlight that could power the spacecraft’s solar arrays. And in the shadow of the crater, scientists had made the huge discovery of water ice. Water is not only key to human survival, but the oxygen and hydrogen could be used as another resource—fuel. Making the moon, then, a giant gas station in space.

  Orbiting Earth, the International Space Station held a permanent, if small, colony. Now the moon could, too. But it could be bigger, with room for several nations to set up camps side by side.

  Robert Bigelow, who was building inflatable space habitats that could be used to orbit the moon, said that “Mars is premature at this time. The moon is not.”

  Bezos believed that as well.

  “I think that if you go to the moon first, and make the moon your home, then you can get to Mars more easily,” he said.

  AND SO THE moon. Again, the moon.

  The greatest achievement in the history of humankind, revisited. Only now, so much time had passed that the twelve Apollo astronauts who had walked on the lunar surface were dying off, one by one.

  James Irwin, Apollo 15, was the first to go, in 1991.

  Alan Shepard, Apollo 14, died seven years later.

  Pete Conrad, Apollo 12, passed a year after that.

  Then Neil Armstrong, Apollo 11.

  Then Edgar Mitchell, Apollo 14.

  In January 2017, Gene Cernan, Apollo 17, the last man to walk on the moon, died. As he departed the lunar surface, Cernan said that “we leave as we came, and God willing, as we shall return with peace and hope for all mankind.”
He predicted that the return would be followed with a next giant leap, to Mars, by the end of the twentieth century, if not sooner.

  Now, it was nearly fifty years since the height of the Space Age. The Apollo astronauts had blazed a trail that no one followed, their prophecies left unfulfilled.

  Here, though, was a new generation, one ready to resurrect the dreams of their childhood, replicate the feats of their heroes, inspire as they had been inspired.

  Bezos was five when he watched Armstrong walk on the moon. Musk had not yet been born. But with their massive fortunes and ambition, they were reenacting the Cold War space race, a pair of Space Barons starring in the roles of nations, hoping to pick up where Apollo had left off more than a generation earlier. Their race to the stars was driven not by war or politics; rather, by money and ego and adventure, a chance to extend humanity out into space for good.

  They had taken their mark and the starter had fired his gun. The hare burst forward, kicking up a plume of dust. Head down. Plow through the line. The tortoise plodded along, step by step, repeating quietly, Slow is smooth and smooth is fast.

  The race had been years in the making, but it had only just begun. It would continue down a long and unforeseeable path, until the years turned to decades and the decades into generations, lasting long after the tortoise and the hare were gone. A race past even their own imaginations, deep into the cosmos, to a point in the beyond where there was no finish line.

  Elon Musk unveils the version of the Dragon spacecraft designed to fly astronauts at an event at SpaceX’s headquarters, 2014. Courtesy of NASA/Dimitri Gerondidakis.

  Jeff Bezos shows off Blue Origin’s crew capsule and the New Shepard booster at a conference in Colorado Springs, 2017. Courtesy of Christian Davenport.

  A Falcon 9 lands on a ship in the Atlantic Ocean, 2016, after hoisting a commercial satellite to space. Courtesy of SpaceX.

  A Falcon 9 booster stage arrives at Port Canaveral, Florida, after landing on a ship in the Atlantic Ocean, 2016. Courtesy of SpaceX.

  Blue Origin’s New Shepard booster launches from the company’s site in West Texas, April 2, 2016. Courtesy of Blue Origin.

  Brian Binnie (left), Paul Allen, and Burt Rutan stand in front of SpaceShipOne after Binnie successfully flew the spacecraft in 2004, winning the Ansari X Prize. Copyright © Mojave Aerospace Ventures LLC; courtesy of Scaled Composites.

  Elon Musk gives President Barack Obama a tour of SpaceX launchpad at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, 2010. Courtesy of NASA/Bill Ingalls.

  Paul Allen speaks as SpaceShipOne goes on display at the National Air and Space Museum, Washington, DC, 2005. Copyright © 2005, Larry Morris/Washington Post.

  Lori Garver, then the NASA deputy administrator, tours Blue Origin’s facility in 2011, meeting with members of the company, including Jeff Bezos. Courtesy of NASA/Bill Ingalls.

  The SpaceX Dragon spacecraft being released from the International Space Station, 2014, after a cargo delivery mission. Courtesy of NASA.

  Gwynne Shotwell, SpaceX president and chief operating officer, speaks in front of launch complex 39A at the Kennedy Space Center, 2017. Also shown are Kennedy Space Center director Bob Cabana (left), and Tim Hughes, SpaceX’s senior vice president and general counsel (right). Courtesy of NASA/Kim Shiflett.

  Jeff Bezos and Buzz Aldrin at the National Air and Space Museum, 2016, after Bezos was awarded the Heinlein Prize, an honor named for the science fiction writer that comes with a sword. Courtesy of the Heinlein Prize Trust.

  A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket explodes during fueling ahead of an engine test at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, 2016. Mike Wager/US Launch Report.

  NTSB Chairman Christopher Hart and NTSB investigators with Virgin Galactic pilot Todd Ericson after the 2014 fatal crash of SpaceShipTwo in the Mojave desert. Courtesy of the NTSB.

  Richard Branson celebrates with a giant leap while showing off Virgin Galactic’s new SpaceShipTwo in Mojave in 2016. Courtesy of Virgin Galactic.

  Richard Branson unveils the new SpaceShipTwo, dubbed Unity, at an event in Mojave, California. Copyright © 2016, Ricky Carioti/Washington Post.

  Blue Origin paints a turtle, the company’s mascot, on its booster after every launch. Courtesy of Blue Origin.

  Virgin Galactic’s SpaceShipTwo in a glide test flight over Mojave, 2016. Courtesy of Virgin Galactic.

  A model shows off SpaceX’s spacesuit. Courtesy of SpaceX.

  An artist’s rendering of what SpaceX’s BFR rocket would look like approaching Mars. Courtesy of SpaceX.

  Paul Allen’s Stratolaunch, coming out of its hangar in Mojave, California, 2017, would be the largest airplane ever flown. It is designed to “air launch” as many as three rockets. Copyright © Stratolaunch Corporation.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  The four billionaires featured in this book—Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, Richard Branson, and Paul Allen—all run multiple companies and have huge demands on their time. So, I’m grateful that all of them graciously agreed to sit down with me and share their stories and insights. I’m thankful also that they approved many of my requests to speak with executives from their companies or associates, all of which made the narrative immeasurably better.

  As it turns out, one of the subjects of this book, Jeff Bezos, is also the owner of my employer, The Washington Post. Let me address that head on. It is, I admit, somewhat awkward writing a book about someone who could have you fired. But under the leadership of Executive Editor Marty Baron, the Post has made it clear that it covers Jeff’s companies as it would any other. Jeff receives the same treatment in these pages—fair and unflinching, without fear or favor.

  I was first hired at the Post as a news aide when I was twenty years old—and have worked there for the majority of my adult life, enough time to have its values imprinted on my DNA, and to meet some of the most remarkable journalists practicing the craft today. Marty was gracious in allowing me leave to write this book. So were Cameron Barr, Emilio Garcia-Ruiz, Tracy Grant, and David Cho.

  Three of my editors, Lynda Robinson, Dan Beyers, and Kelly Johnson, read various drafts of the manuscript, and helped shaped the book as much as anyone. Their support was gracious and overwhelming, and I owe each of them a huge debt of gratitude. I’m also grateful to Del Quentin Wilber for his counsel, passion, and keen eye.

  The companies profiled here have dedicated staffs of immensely patient communications professions, who withstood my queries with grace. Thank you to John Taylor, James Gleeson, and Sean Pitt at SpaceX; to Drew Herdener at Amazon; to Caitlin Dietrich at Blue Origin; to Christine Choi and Will Pommerantz at Virgin Galactic; to Steve Lombardi and Jim Jeffries at Vulcan. Thank you also to Tabatha Thompson and Mike Curie at NASA.

  Eric Stallmer and Tommy Sanford at the Commercial Spaceflight Federation, both faithful advocates for the industry, helped open doors and were generous with their time and expertise. Many people in the space community also helped educate me about matters of policy, politics, and space. I’m grateful to James Muncy, Lori Garver, David Weaver, George Whitesides, Bretton Alexander, Tim Hughes, Phil Larson, Mike French, Stu Witt, Brendan Curry, and Rich Leshner.

  The research for this book began while I was at the Post, as I chronicled the daily tumult of the beginnings of a new industry. But I relied greatly on the excellent reporting of many colleagues in the space press corps, including Jeff Foust, Joel Achenbach, Eric Berger, Irene Klotz, Frank Mooring Jr., Loren Grush, Alan Boyle, Stephen Clark, Kenneth Chang, Miriam Kramer, and James Dean.

  In addition to the dozens of interviews I conducted for this book, my research depended on many texts, a few of which merit specific mention: Ashlee Vance’s Elon Musk: Tesla, SpaceX, and the Quest for a Fantastic Future, Brad Stone’s The Everything Store: Jeff Bezos and the Age of Amazon, and Julian Guthrie’s How to Make a Spaceship: A Band of Renegades, an Epic Race, and the Birth of Private Spaceflight.

  While I was on leave from the Post, I was fortunate to find another home—the Wilson International Cent
er for Scholars—which provided a much-needed space to write and reflect. I’m thankful for the support of Jane Harman and Robert Litwak, who made the experience possible.

  Rafe Sagalyn, my agent, was a relentless and enthusiastic advocate for the project. At PublicAffairs I owe thanks to my editor, John Mahaney, who shepherded the book from conception to print. Thank you also to Iris Bass and Sandra Beris for their careful copyedits.

  Throughout the sometimes grueling process of this endeavor, I was lucky to have the love and support of my parents and extended family. My amazing children, Annie, Harrison, and Piper, were constant sources of joy, and reminders of what was really important. I’m grateful, above all, to my wife, Heather, a steadfast supporter and insightful reader, who inspires me daily. Love you and love you.

  Christian Davenport has been a staff writer at The Washington Post since 2000 and currently covers the space and defense industries for the financial desk. He has also worked at Newsday, the Philadelphia Inquirer, and the Austin American-Statesman. He is a recipient of the Peabody award for his work on veterans with traumatic brain injury and has been on reporting teams that were finalists for the Pulitzer Prize three times. He is the author of As You Were: To War and Back with the Black Hawk Battalion of the Virginia National Guard. He lives in Washington, DC, with his wife and three children.