in these chapters, you'll learn about the difficult early days of spacex, from its conflict with nasa to the days it spent on a remote tropical island in the pacific, and you'll follow the company all the way through to its first successful launch.

elon musk founded spacex because he saw that the us space program was in a sorry state.#

chapter 1 of 7 elon musk wants us to inhabit mars.

as global warming threatens life on earth, he thinks we should leave our planet, or prepare to fail as a species.

out on mars, we can engineer a new green world, a new eden.

this is what drives musk's company, spacex, as it pushes to build spacecraft capable of such a long and expensive mission.

as it pushes to build spacecraft capable of such a long and dangerous journey.

though spacex is still very young, the company already has a long history.

musk felt disenchanted with the lack of ambition he saw in u.s. space exploration.

as he looked around in spacex's early days, he saw nasa and some other big aerospace companies, and thought, is this it?

the key message here is, elon musk founded spacex because he saw that the u.s. space program was in a sorry state.

the story of spacex begins back in the year 2000.

musk was cruising down the long island expressway with a fellow entrepreneur called adio ressi.

musk had recently lost his role as chief executive at paypal, the company he'd co-founded.

as they drove, ressi asked musk what he planned to do next, and the answer was all about space exploration.

but musk had his doubts.

could a private individual really succeed in that field?

and anyway, why would the world of space exploration need someone like him?

three decades had passed since the u.s. had sent the apollo astronauts to the moon.

by now, surely, nasa must be close to sending humans to mars.

later that day, musk checked nasa's website for news on its mars missions.

but as he scrolled through the website, he couldn't find any.

he was astonished.

to understand more, he began attending space conferences in california.

and it was there that he found out the truth.

nasa wasn't planning to send people to mars any time soon.

so perhaps a private individual like him could actually make a difference after all.

if nasa was so unambitious, then maybe it would be down to the entrepreneurs to explore space.

musk started to dream big.

he imagined building his own rocket.

and just two years on, things really got moving.

he called a meeting of leading aerospace engineers.

as they gathered at the renaissance hotel in los angeles, musk explained his plans.

their answer was just a chuckle.

one even said, save your money, kid, and go sit on the beach.

but these engineers, experienced as they were, didn't know musk.

if anything, he became even more determined.

he was going to build his rocket.

from the beginning, spacex had an unconventional approach that made it more dynamic.#

chapter two of seven.

when musk gathered leading aerospace engineers at that la hotel, not all of them were dismissive.

some actually showed enthusiasm, including tom mueller and chris thompson, both rising stars in the world of aerospace.

musk set up his new company, space exploration technologies, or spacex, on may 6, 2002.

the ambition was to build cheap, high-quality rockets quickly.

mueller and thompson were among the first to join, and very soon they began to see that, at spacex, things were going to be different.

the key message here is, from the beginning, spacex had an unconventional approach that made it more dynamic.

firstly, musk had a very hands-on approach to hiring.

he personally met and interviewed every single person that the company hired through the first 3,000 employees.

when starting a company in the rocket building business, it was important to get the right people.

his interview process could be unconventional, to say the least.

take the example of one early hire, phil kossuth, a brainy 21-year-old who'd grown up in war-torn lebanon.

to test his thinking, musk asked him a riddle.

he told kossuth to imagine that he was somewhere on earth with a compass and a flag.

the riddle went like this.

you plant your flag, walk a mile south, walk a mile east, and then finally a mile north you find you're back where you started.

where are you?

the north pole, kossuth answered correctly.

he was hired.

but there was more.

unlike many established aerospace companies, spacex allowed employees to experiment and make mistakes.

its competitors moved slowly through the engineering process, but musk wanted spacex to build and break things fast.

this model was iterative, rather than linear.

the linear process was what the older aerospace companies used.

they moved methodically towards a goal, carefully testing all rocket components on the way.

the result offered stability, but mistakes were expensive and time-consuming to fix.

musk's iterative approach, on the other hand, meant starting with a concept and leaping straight into building it.

and as for mistakes, spacex was prepared to make them quickly and learn from them.

this meant that, right from the outset, spacex was a lean, mean rocket-building machine.

decades earlier, musk had a predecessor who failed in his attempt to conquer space.#

chapter 3 of 7 why did people who knew aerospace well initially dismiss musk?

well, many of them had seen people like him come and go.

they saw musk as just another millionaire indulging his space fantasy, and they were sure he'd fail.

and at the front of their minds was one man in particular.

that man was george koopman, who'd founded the american rocket company, or amroc, in 1985.

koopman had been an intelligence analyst during the vietnam war, made training films for the military, and arranged stunts for hollywood movies.

he was a colorful character, and friends with cultural figures and movie stars, like ghostbusters actor dan aykroyd and lsd champion timothy leary.

through his connection with aykroyd, koopman had gotten a role supervising stunts on the 1980 movie the blues brothers.

just like musk, he wanted to build low-cost rockets.

and also like musk, he'd wanted to make space travel routine.

but rather than focus on mars, he had ambitions to start a space transportation business.

he wanted amroc to be like federal express, delivering packages to and from orbit.

the key message here is, decades earlier, musk had a predecessor who failed in his attempt to conquer space.

distinguished aeronautics engineers signed up to work for amroc just as they later would for musk.

one of them, james french, had been employed by nasa for two decades.

another, mike griffin, would go on to advise elon musk many years later.

it all started well enough, but after a while, these engineers came to see koopman as a bit of a wheeler-dealer, rather than someone who understood rocket science.

he used all the right buzzwords, but his knowledge was very shallow.

without the government support and infinite wealth needed for this venture, koopman began to rely on rich donors.

to appease them, he would exaggerate amroc's progress.

he kept telling them the company was only months away from launching a rocket.

for years, amroc floundered, but then its fortunes seemed to finally turn around.

the company agreed to launch u.s. air force rockets from vanderburg, california.

but not long after, in 1989, koopman was killed in a car accident.

amroc, now in terrible shape, pressed on and announced its first test flight the same year.

it was a disaster.

the rocket just collapsed in flames.

amroc shared a similar fate soon after.

its story is a poignant reminder as to why people familiar with the rocket business looked at musk's new venture with weariness and skepticism.

the obstinacy of the us air force led spacex to a remote tropical island.#

chapter 4 of 7 when spacex asked the u.s. air force for permission to launch from california's famous vanderburg site, musk's team thought it would be a done deal.

it did meet all the criteria in its application, after all.

but the air force had other ideas.

at the time, in the early 2000s, it was using vanderburg to prepare its own rocket launches.

the air force had invested $200 million to modernize the site.

the plan was to use it for rockets built by the aerospace giant lockheed martin.

no wonder the air force was reluctant to let the upstart company come in and risk damaging all of this new equipment.

so spacex's application just seemed to vanish into a black hole.

it wasn't rejected, as it ticked every box, but it was put on hold indefinitely.

for a company that wanted to move fast, this was unacceptable.

the key message here is, the obstinacy of the u.s. air force led spacex to a remote tropical island.

musk began to look around for other launch options.

one was in the middle of the pacific ocean, far from anywhere.

this was omelek island, part of the kwajalein atoll in the marshall islands.

long controlled by the u.s. military, the kwajalein atoll, or kwaj for short, had seen plenty of missile tests over the decades.

there was another factor that led spacex to kwaj.

the company had signed a deal with the malaysian government to launch a satellite.

but to put it into orbit, it would need to fly the rocket up and over the u.s. mainland, which was prohibited.

so the little atoll in the middle of the pacific seemed the perfect launch site.

musk tracked down the military man in charge of kwaj and called him.

as he listened to musk, he thought the entrepreneur was some sort of madman and simply hung up.

but then he googled musk and decided to call him back.

after that meeting in l.a., omelek island on kwaj was spacex's to use.

what was the place like?

in short, a tropical paradise, with palm trees and sparkling seas full of fish.

but the army accommodation was far from luxurious.

the rooms smelt of mold and entertainment was limited to army tv sets that picked up just a few channels.

some spacex employees grew to love the atoll.

others hated it.

whatever they thought of kwaj, though, the island would become vital in the spacex story.

spacex’s first launch on kwaj didn’t go as planned.#

chapter 5 of 7 on friday, march 24, 2006, nearly six years since musk founded spacex, his fledgling company was ready to launch its first rocket, named the falcon 1.

the launch would take place on omelek island.

after a series of tests and aborted launch attempts came the day when spacex would prove itself.

the engineers had put their everything into the falcon 1.

musk himself was so eager to see his rocket fly, he traveled to the atoll on his private jet.

he was no stranger to getting his hands dirty.

he'd worked on the rocket through long days and nights many times before.

the key message here is, spacex's first launch on kwaj didn't go as planned.

early that morning, spacex engineers made their way to the launch control room on omelek.

many of them cycled there in the ocean breeze.

as they prepared for flight and ran final checks, excitement at the launch site was palpable.

and then, with musk in the control room, they started the countdown.

but something strange happened.

rather than pay attention to his first real launch, musk strolled up to the console of chris thompson, one of those first two engineers he hired, and started talking about the materials he wanted to use for a future rocket.

he seemed to lose all interest in falcon 1 just seconds before liftoff and suddenly focused on the properties of aluminum alloys instead.

true to type, musk's mind was always on the future, even at this most extraordinary moment.

as the spacex team watched their screens, the falcons' flames burned brightly and the rocket climbed over the tropical island.

but seconds later, the engine appeared to catch fire.

there were gasps of dismay in the control room.

the rocket stopped rising and eventually plummeted back to earth.

a camera feed from the launch pad showed burning chunks of metal crashing into the ocean.

after six years of hard work, the failure of falcon came as a gut blow to everyone at the company.

that evening, as the team drowned their sorrows, musk's brother kimball, a professional chef, tried to cheer them up by cooking a big bean and tomato stew.

then, next morning, as the team members made their way back to the launch site to survey the damage, they found the islanders had made a beautiful gesture.

more than 100 people, mostly civilians, had gathered at the port to help with the salvage mission.

musk had begun to understand.

launching rockets is hard.

there would be more dramatic failures to come.

but he wasn't going to give up now.

spacex wasn’t afraid of confronting the established order.#

chapter 6 of 7 throughout spacex's history, there have been many times where musk had to ruffle the feathers of established industry players.

as he faced skepticism from big aerospace companies, the government, and the military, his instinct was to deal with trouble head-on.

his ambition was to shake things up, to push space exploration further after decades of stagnation.

he certainly wasn't going to take the easy road.

early on, musk staged a spectacular event to announce spacex's arrival.

as it was developing the falcon 1 in 2003, musk decided that the company needed to grab the limelight.

he wanted to show the world what spacex could do, to let the old guard know that there was a new player in town, and also to advertise to potential customers.

musk understood the power of a great spectacle, so he decided to bring his rocket to washington, d.c., the very center of american power.

the key message here is, spacex wasn't afraid of confronting the established order.

the day after thanksgiving, 2003, musk drove the falcon 1 into washington, d.c., and parked all 68 feet of it outside the national air and space museum.

that evening, in freezing weather, musk gave a short speech in front of the rocket.

if he'd sought to make an entrance, he'd succeeded.

later on, when nasa decided to award a rocket-building contract to his competitor, kistler aerospace, musk was furious.

kistler was led by a veteran of the apollo mission, george mueller, and the company was contracting the development of its nasa rocket to big aerospace players like lockheed martin and northrop grumman.

in musk's eyes, this was pure favoritism, the old guard looking after its own.

it had never put the contract to tender.

musk protested nasa's decision.

many people told musk that he was mad to challenge nasa, that he'd just anger a potential future client.

but time proved him right.

the u.s. government accountability office decided that nasa hadn't awarded the contract fairly.

kistler's deal was pulled, and nasa opened up a new competition for rocket-building.

then, in august 2006, just as senior managers at spacex were beginning to panic about its financial situation, nasa phoned with the results of the lucrative contract competition.

after hanging up, musk called an impromptu staff meeting on the factory floor.

it was extremely short.

well, he said, we fucking won.

after multiple failures, spacex simply had to deliver.#

chapter 7 of 7 spacex didn't give up after that failed first launch.

twice more it tried to send falcon 1 into orbit from omelec.

even though it had made progress on both attempts, the rocket never quite made it all the way to space.

in the eyes of its governmental and commercial clients, musk's company was unable to perform as advertised.

spacex desperately needed success on its fourth attempt.

and there were more pressing reasons than just reputation and pr.

musk's money was running out.

in 2008, spacex scheduled the vital fourth launch for september 29.

the key message here is, after multiple failures, spacex simply had to deliver.

but then, just as it was transporting the rocket from the u.s. to kwaj, disaster struck.

as the team traveled to kwaj in a giant c-17 military aircraft, with the falcon 1 in its cargo bay, engineers began to hear popping noises.

they rushed down, only to see the rocket crumpling like a can of coke.

a change in ambient pressure was destroying their spacecraft.

miraculously, one of the spacex team, zach dunn, managed to climb inside the rocket and release the pressure.

just like that, the rocket began to decompress.

the crumples soon smoothed out.

still, the rocket was badly damaged.

with only days to go before its scheduled launch window, the team had to take the rocket apart completely and put it back together again.

and they had to do this in the sweltering tropical climate.

musk's team of crack engineers worked harder than they'd ever done before to strip the rocket down, fix the damage, and reassemble it.

and when they put falcon 1 through its pre-launch tests, the rocket aced them.

somehow, it was flightworthy again.

in a matter of days, the team had rescued the crushed form from the cargo bay and turned it into a rocket ready to fly into orbit.

as launch day, september 29, dawned, the team knew that this time failure wasn't an option.

either the rocket would fly, or spacex would be finished.

so the atmosphere in the control room on quaj was full of both determination and trepidation.

musk and some of his colleagues stayed in la to watch the launch on a live feed.

the countdown began.

then, liftoff.

the rocket rose and rose and rose.

this time, it didn't stop.

and finally, after eight long years, spacex had sent a rocket and its payload into orbit.

it had done it.

elon musk, the former internet entrepreneur who'd been disenchanted with the state of space exploration, turned his grand dreams into reality.

you've just listened to our chapters to liftoff by eric berger.

final summary#

Conclusion

the key message in these chapters is that elon musk founded spacex because he was unimpressed with the lack of ambition he saw in u.s. space exploration.

though he encountered skepticism, musk kept going and eventually disrupted the aerospace industry with his energy and unique approach to rocket building.

after several failed attempts, spacex finally launched the falcon 1 and its payload into orbit in 2008.

this heralded its arrival into the rocket business as a serious player.

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