“I’m going to watch”: Carl Hoffman, “Elon Musk Is Betting His Fortune on a Mission Beyond Earth’s Orbit,” Wired, May 22, 2007.
“This was a pretty nerve-racking”: Tariq Malik, “SpaceX’s Second Falcon 1 Rocket Fails to Reach Orbit,” Space.com, March 20, 2007.
“SpaceX will not skip”: John Schwartz, “Launch of Private Rocket Fails; Three Satellites Were Onboard,” New York Times, August 3, 2008.
He added: “For my part”: Jeremy Hsu, “SpaceX’s Falcon 1 Falters for a Third Time,” Space.com, August 3, 2008.
The challenge “was”: Gwynne Shotwell, NASA Oral History, January 15, 2003.
“Between the third”: Hans Koenigsmann, NASA Oral History, January 15, 2013.
“We wanted to keep”: https://www.nasa.gov/feature/the-making-of-the-apollo-11-mission-patch.
And when the NASA officials: “Tesla and SpaceX: Elon Musk’s Industrial Empire,” 60 Minutes, March 30, 2014.
Goddard was derided: “Apollo 11: How America Won the Race to the Moon,” Associated Press, August 21, 2016.
“That Professor Goddard”: “A Severe Strain on Credulity,” New York Times, January 13, 1920.
Goddard responded by saying that: https://www.nasa.gov/missions/research/f_goddard.html.
“How many more years”: “Apollo 11.”
“Further investigation”: “A Correction,” New York Times, July 17, 1969.
9. “DEPENDABLE OR A LITTLE NUTS?”
Musk was thrilled: https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=11&v=CUmnzaDGifo.
When the company was told: Irene Klotz, “SpaceX Secret? Bash Bureaucracy, Simplify Technology,” Aviation Week & Space Technology, June 15, 2009.
When it was building Falcon 1: Jennifer Reingold, “Hondas in Space,” Fast Company Magazine, February 1, 2005.
The rocket’s avionics: Ibid.
Instead of using the straps: John Couluris, NASA Johnson Space Center Oral History Project, Commercial Crew & Program Office, January 15, 2003.
At “SpaceX, we weren’t”: Ibid.
“The biggest challenge”: Gwynne Shotwell, NASA Oral History, January 15, 2003.
“When we talked to them”: Michael Horkachuck, NASA Oral History, November 6, 2012.
“The president’s proposed”: Joel Achenbach, “Obama Budget Proposal Scraps NASA’s Back-to-the-Moon Program,” Washington Post, February 2, 2010.
Michael Griffin, the former: Joel Achenbach, “NASA Budget for 2011 Eliminates Funds for Manned Lunar Missions,” Washington Post, February 1, 2010.
“I think he wanted”: Marc Kaufman, “One Giant Leap for Privatization?” Washington Post, June 4, 2010.
“I hope people don’t”: Marcia Dunn, “PayPal Millionaire’s Rocket Making 1st Test Flight,” Associated Press, June 3, 2010.
“A dramatic launch failure”: Andy Pasztor, “Space Pioneer Elon Musk Faces Big Risks with Upcoming Launch,” Wall Street Journal, June 4, 2010.
Eventually a reporter: Andy Pasztor, “Amazon Chief’s Spaceship Misfires,” Wall Street Journal, September 3, 2011.
10. “UNICORNS DANCING IN THE FLAME DUCT”
“Miraculous profits await you”: Gary White, “Miracle City Mall Was Once a Bright Spot in Titusville,” Lakeland Ledger, June 23, 2011.
And a spokesman admitted: Scott Powers, “NASA Picks SpaceX to Run KSC Launch Complex,” Orlando Sentinel, December 13, 2013.
Musk even put a price tag: Jonathan Amos, “Mars for the ‘Average Person,’” BBC News, March 20, 2012.
At SpaceX’s headquarters: Brian Vastag, “SpaceX Dragon Capsule Docks with International Space Station,” Washington Post, May 25, 2012.
“This is, I think”: Kenneth Chang, “First Private Craft Docks with Space Station,” New York Times, May 25, 2012.
In a statement to SpaceNews: Dan Leone, “Musk Calls Out Blue Origin, ULA for ‘Phony Blocking Tactic’ on Shuttle Pad Lease,” SpaceNews, September 25, 2013.
It enlisted the aid: Alan Boyle, “Billionaires’ Battle for Historic Launchpad Goes into Overtime,” NBC News, September 18, 2013.
“It is therefore unlikely”: Leone, “Musk Calls Out Blue Origin.”
11. MAGIC SCULPTURE GARDEN
Some 15 miles off the coast: Martin Weil, “Storm Rips Apart Commercial Fishing Boat off Maryland’s Coast,” Washington Post, March 8, 2013.
“The Titanic looks”: David Concannon, “Titanic: The First Dive of a New Century,” Fathoms Magazine, no. 6.
“It’s hard to find”: Bezos Expeditions produced a video and published a series of updates on its website, http://www.bezosexpeditions.com/updates.html.
The side-scan sonar system: http://www.blacklaserlearning.com/adventure/how-do-you-recover-an-apollo-rocket-engine-from-over-2-miles-beneath-the-bermuda-triangle/.
After studying the data: Bezos Expeditions, http://www.bezos expeditions.com.
“You can feel it walking”: Ibid.
“Three miles below”: Ibid.
“Mariners all over the world”: Ibid.
Bezos announced the news: Ibid.
On the menu: Michael Y. Park, “Eating Maggots: The Explorers Club Dinner,” Epicurious, March 17, 2008, http://www.epicurious.com/archive/blogs/editor/2008/03/eating-maggots.html.
One year, the club’s president: Lynda Richardson, “Explorers Club: Less ‘Egad’ and More ‘Wow!’ New York Times, December 3, 2004.
“Jeff is trying to get people”: https://archive.org/details/ECAD 2014720_201502.
12. “SPACE IS HARD”
And it was only a test: Christian Davenport, “SpaceX Rocket Blows Up over Texas,” Washington Post, August 25, 2014.
The Atlantic canonized him: Nicole Allan, “Who Will Tomorrow’s Historians Consider Today’s Greatest Inventors,” Atlantic, November 2013, https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2013/11/the-inventors/309534/.
National security launches paid: “The Air Force’s Evolved Expendable Launch Vehicle Competitive Procurement,” US Government Accountability Office, March 4, 2014, http://www.gao.gov/assets/670/661330.pdf.
“Musk is”: Aaron Mehta, “Elon Musk on Russian Assassins, Lockheed Martin, and Going to Mars,” Defense News, June 10, 2014, http://intercepts.defensenews.com/2014/06/elon-musk-on-russian-assassins-lockheed-martin-and-going-to-mars/.
“Our toughest competitor”: Ibid.
“SpaceX is trying to cut”: Christian Davenport, “ULA Chief Accuses Elon Musk’s SpaceX of Trying to ‘Cut Corners,’” Washington Post, June 18, 2014.
208 “It’s kind of the best”: Joel Achenbach, “Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin to Supply Rocket Engines for National Security Launches,” Washington Post, September 17, 2014, embedded video, https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/jeff-bezos-and-blue-origin-to-supply-engines-for-national-security-space-launches/2014/09/17/59f46eb2–3e7b-11e4–9587–5dafd96295f0_story.html?utm_term=.be88d6562a8d.
“If all your competitors”: Andrea Shalal, “Boeing-Lockheed Venture Picks Bezos Engine for Future Rockets,” Reuters, September 17, 2014.
“That is how a 21st Century”: Tony Reichardt, “That Is How a 21st Century Spaceship Should Land,” Smithsonian Air & Space, May 30, 2014, http://www.airspacemag.com/daily-planet/ii-how-21st-century-spaceship-should-land-180951621/.
Leading up to the launch: Marcia Dunn, “Space Station Supply Launch Called Off in Virginia,” Associated Press, October 28, 2014.
The first flights were supposed to start: Virgin Galactic Overview, https://web.archive.org/web/20070331154530/http://virgingalactic.com/htmlsite/overview.htm.
For $250,000, Virgin promised: Ibid.
It had inked a deal: “NBCUniversal Announces Exclusive Partnership with Sir Richard Branson’s Virgin Galactic to Televise First Commercial Flight to Space,” press release, November 8, 2013.
Flying above the Mojave Desert: “G Force Training with Virgin Galactic,” October 8, 2014, https://www.virgin.com/richard-branson/g-force-training-virgin-galactic.
They were close fri
ends: Christian Davenport and Jöel Glenn Brenner, “Two Pilots Who Were Close Friends Now Tied Together by One Fatal Flight,” Washington Post, November 3, 2014.
Siebold had considered the mission: The account of the crash comes from the National Transportation Safety Board’s investigation, https://www.ntsb.gov/news/events/Pages/2015_spaceship2_BMG.aspx.
But a NASA slide showed: Jeff Foust, “Progress Anomaly Strains Space Station Supply Lines,” SpaceNews, April 28, 2015.
“The vast majority of people”: Christian Davenport, “Hearing Elon Musk Explain Why His Rocket Just Blew Up Shows Why He’s Such an Intense CEO,” Washington Post, June 20, 2015.
13. “THE EAGLE HAS LANDED”
The capsule on top of the rocket: “Blue Origin Makes Historic Rocket Landing,” November 24, 2015, https://www.blueorigin.com/news/news/blue-origin-makes-historic-rocket-landing.
In interviews afterward: Christian Davenport, “Jeff Bezos Sticks Rocket Landing, Stakes Claim in Billionaires’ Space Race,” Washington Post, November 24, 2015.
“The pad has stood silent”: Christian Davenport, “Jeff Bezos’s Blue Origin Space Company to Launch from Historic Pad at Space Coast,” Washington Post, September 15, 2015.
Reaching the threshold of space: Christian Davenport, “The Inside Story of How Billionaires Are Racing to Take You to Outer Space,” Washington Post, August 19, 2016.
As Musk once said: Carl Hoffman, “Elon Musk Is Betting His Fortune on a Mission Beyond Earth Orbit,” Wired, May 22, 2007.
SpaceX compared it to: “X Marks the Spot: Falcon 9 Attempts Ocean Platform Landing,” December 16, 2014, http://www.spacex.com/news/2014/12/16/x-marks-spot-falcon-9-attempts-ocean-platform-landing.
“Well, at least we got close”: Christian Davenport, “After SpaceX Sticks Its Landing, Elon Musk Talks About a City on Mars,” Washington Post, December 22, 2015.
“It really quite dramatically”: Ibid.
The National Transportation Safety Board: NTSB press release, “Lack of Consideration for Human Factors Led to In-flight Breakup of SpaceShipTwo,” July 28, 2015.
As board member Robert Sumwalt: Christian Davenport, “NTSB Blames Human Error, Compounded by Poor Safety Culture, in Virgin Galactic Crash, Washington Post, July 28, 2015.
“At Blue Origin, our biggest”: Christian Davenport, “Jeff Bezos on Nuclear Reactors in Space, the Lack of Bacon on Mars and Humanity’s Destiny in the Solar System,” Washington Post, September 15, 2016.
“If somebody can just tell me”: John Logsdon, John F. Kennedy and the Race to the Moon (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2010), 77–78.
14. MARS
“Essentially what we’re saying”: Christian Davenport, “Elon Musk Provides New Details on His ‘Mind Blowing’ Mission to Mars,” Washington Post, June 10, 2016.
“So,” he said, “how do we figure out”: “Making Humans a Multiplanetary Species,” http://www.spacex.com/mars.
“The priorities of all of our customers”: “United Launch Alliance Announces Rapid Launch, the Industry’s Fastest Order to Launch Service,” September 13, 2016, http://www.ulalaunch.com/ula-announces-rapidlaunch.aspx.
A SpaceX employee suddenly: Christian Davenport, “Implication of Sabotage Adds Intrigue to SpaceX Investigation,” Washington Post, September 30, 2016.
But it was also all a bit: Christian Davenport, “Elon Musk on Mariachi Bands, Zero-G Games, and Why His Mars Plan Is Like ‘Battlestar Galactica,’” Washington Post, September 28, 2016.
If Musk were going to be able: Davenport, “Implication.”
The $23 billion SLS/Orion program: “NASA Human Space Exploration: Opportunity Nears to Reassess Launch Vehicle and Ground Systems Cost and Schedule,” US Government Accountability Office, July 2016.
“His job is to provide”: Christian Davenport, “Elon Musk Offers Glimpse of Plans to Deliver Humans to Mars,” Washington Post, September 27, 2016.
“There’s so much interest”: Christian Davenport, “Why Investors Are Following Musk, Bezos in Betting on the Stars,” Washington Post, January 28, 2016.
By mid-2017, after raising $350 million: Katie Benner and Kenneth Chang, “SpaceX Is Now One of the World’s Most Valuable Privately Held Companies,” New York Times, July 27, 2017.
“We believe space mining”: Lauren Thomas, “In a New Space Age, Goldman Suggests Investors Make It Big in Asteroids,” CNBC, April 6, 2017.
15. “THE GREAT INVERSION”
He’d joked that Blue Origin’s business model: Christian Davenport, “Jeff Bezos Shows Off the Crew Capsule That Could Soon Take Tourists to Space,” Washington Post, April 5, 2017.
By contrast, he spent $2.5 billion: Caleb Henry, “Blue Origin Enlarges New Glenn’s Payload Fairing, Preparing to Debut Upgraded New Shepard,” SpaceNews, September 17, 2017.
“We all have passions”: Alan Boyle, “Video: Watch Amazon’s Jeff Bezos Talk with Kids About Apollo’s Space Legacy—and Share Life Lessons,” Geekwire, May 20, 2017, https://www.geekwire.com/2017/jeff-bezos-kids-apollo/.
Two days before the launch: https://www.blueorigin.com/astronaut-experience.
“We’ll talk about Blue Origin”: Davenport, “Why Jeff Bezos Is Finally Ready to Talk About Taking People to Space,” Washington Post, March 8, 2016.
Without mentioning Musk: Ibid.
“Think about it,” he said: Christian Davenport, “Jeff Bezos on Nuclear Reactors in Space, the Lack of Bacon on Mars, and Humanity’s Destiny in the Solar System,” Washington Post, September 15, 2016.
While he had been inspired: Calla Cofield, “Spaceflight Is Entering a New Golden Age, Says Blue Origin Founder Jeff Bezos,” Space.com, November 25, 2015, https://www.space.com/31214-spaceflight-golden-age-jeff-bezos.html.
“If I’m 80 years old”: Ibid.
Although suborbital space tourism: John Thornhill, “Mars Visionaries Herald a New Space Age,” Financial Times, August 21, 2017.
“We humans don’t get great”: Alan Boyle, “Interview: Jeff Bezos Lays Out Blue Origin’s Space Vision, from Tourism to Off-planet Heavy Industry,” Geekwire, April 13, 2016.
Eleven days before John Glenn: Brian Wolly, “Read the Letter Written by John Glenn to Honor Jeff Bezos for Blue Origin,” Smithsonian Magazine, December 8, 2016, http://www.smithsonianmag.com/innovation/read-letter-written-sen-john-glenn-honor-jeff-bezos-blue-origin-180961366/.
Coming just days before: Cofield, “Spaceflight Is Entering a New Golden Age.”
EPILOGUE: AGAIN, THE MOON
“You have a certain number”: Kenneth Chang, “Tycoon’s Next Big Bet for Space: A Countdown Six Miles Up in the Air,” New York Times, December 13, 2011.
In addition to his fascination with space: http://www.flyingheritage.com/Explore/The-Collection/Russia/Ilyushin-II-2M3-Shturmovik.aspx.
“I would go in the university stacks”: Clare O’Connor, “Inside Microsoft Mogul Paul Allen’s Multi-Million Dollar WWII Plane Collection,” Forbes, June 4, 2013.
“When such access to space”: Christian Davenport, “Why Microsoft Co-founder Paul Allen Is Building the World’s Largest Airplane,” Washington Post, June 20, 2016.
It was years behind schedule: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sDNdYgh5124.
Robert Bigelow: Christian Davenport, “An Exclusive Look at Jeff Bezos’s Plan to Set Up Amazon-like Delivery for ‘Future Human Settlement’ of the Moon”, Washington Post, March 2, 2017.
INDEX
Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA), 60–62, 129
Affordable Care Act, 161
Afghanistan, attack on, 127
Air Force, US, 6, 30, 51–52, 129–130, 247
air launch concept, 80–81
Aldrin, Buzz, 21, 62, 161, 172, 197, 257
Alexa, 254
Alexander, Bretton, 170, 179–180
Allen, Paul, 6
anxiety over powered flight tests, 91–92, 108
Branson’s collaboration on SpaceShipOne, 108
commercial space flights, 4
de
veloping spaceplanes and shuttles, 269
human space travel research, 268
passion for space and aviation, 84–85, 265–267
Scaled Composites, 84
SpaceShipOne flights, 89–90, 96
Stratolaunch
Alsbury, Michael, 212–214, 231–232
Amazon
as funding for space exploration, 253–254
business strategy, 14–15
early obscurity, 17–18
infrastructure development, 260–261
maintaining the startup culture, 75
start up of, 72–73
Anderson, Eric, 249
Anderson, Pamela, 106
Ansari X Prize, 5
Branson’s purchase of SpaceShipOne, 92
congressional hearing on industry oversight, 124–125
Paul Allen and the commercial space movement, 265–266, 268
Paul Allen’s plan with Rutan, 85
SpaceShipOne, 80, 87
Trevor Beattie’s ticket to, 112–113
See also SpaceShipOne
Antares rocket, 210
Apollo 8 program, 257
Apollo astronauts, death of, 274–275
Apollo missions
drawdown following, 116–117, 160–162
Explorers Club, 196–197
Mars as natural successor to, 69–70
Musk and Bezos’s aspirations, 235
Musk’s desire to transcend, 38–39
Saturn V rocket recovery, 189–192
young men in control of, 121
Apophis (asteroid), 36–37
Ares rockets, 139–140, 156–157, 159–160, 162
Argus, Operation, 62
Armstrong, Neil, 21, 62, 142, 161, 172, 235, 255, 275
artificial intelligence, 254
asteroids
as habitats, 71
collisions, 32, 36–37
mining, 249
Obama on deep space exploration, 161–162
Atlas V rocket, 130–131, 173, 206, 248
Atomic Energy Commission (AEC), 61–62
Augustine, Norman, 159
autonomous rockets, 222–223
Bader, Douglas, 103
Bailey, F. Lee, 16
balloon flight, 101–102, 104
Baron, Martin, 253
Baxter, Ken, 112
The Space Barons Page 33
