From Startup to Industry Standard

 

Over the last fifteen years, Elon Musk’s SpaceX has redefined the space industry. Launching rockets has changed from a stodgy plodding business mired in the 20th century to a dynamic 21st-century multiple-weekly-launch industry. It has reduced launch costs by a factor of 100.

Reentry: SpaceX, Elon Musk, and the Reusable Rockets that Launched a Second Space Age by Eric Berger tells how SpaceX accomplished it. The book follows the history of SpaceX from the start of the Falcon 9 project to the present.

Berger opens after the successful launches of Falcon 1. Berger picks up where his previous history of SpaceX, Liftoff, ended. Berger shows how and why Musk chose to abandon the successful but commercially questionable Falcon 1 and leapfrogged past the next development planned: the five-engine Falcon 5.  Instead, Musk shifted to the Falcon 9, capable of putting 23,000 pounds into orbit as compared to Falcon 1’s 1,000 pounds. He also insisted Falcon 9 was to be fully reusable and launch multiple times, a vision then mocked as unachievable.

Berger shows how SpaceX achieved Musk’s vision. Berger follows the decisions made by Musk and the gambles taken by SpaceX to make Falcon 9 the world’s dominant launch vehicle — reusable and capable of making over 100 launches a year. Through interviews with SpaceX, NASA and competitors personnel Berber takes readers into the process, showing how SpaceX transformed from a scrappy startup to an industry giant. Reentry is as much about people as about hardware.

He also shows how Musk retained SpaceX’s startup culture. The jump from Falcon 1 to Falcon 9 was only the first leap taken. Musk kept adding projects, including the Cargo and Manned Dragon, Starlink, and Starship, along with the Twitter takeover.  Some, like a propulsive landing system on the Dragon capsule, proved dead ends.  More often they yielded revolutionary successes. No one previously made a reusable liquid-fueled booster. Starlink became a money machine.

The book’s only flaw is the epilogue. Berger lays out a vision for SpaceX with recommendations revealing he understands neither Musk’s vision nor SpaceX, despite 20 years of close association with both.

But Reentry is too good to be undone by its flawed epilogue. Whatever his weaknesses as a prognosticator, Berger is a first-rate reporter and historian. Reentry offers an insightful and detailed look at SpaceX’s rise in the space industry. It is also a fascinating look at Elon Musk, who repeatedly proves to be Theodore Roosevelt’s “Man in the Arena.” Skip the epilogue. The rest of Reentry is a must-read.

“Reentry: SpaceX, Elon Musk, and the Reusable Rockets that Launched a Second Space Age,” by Eric Berger, BenBella Books, September 2024,‎ 400 pages, $31.95 (Hardcover), $15.99 (E-book)

This review was written by Mark Lardas, who writes at Ricochet as Seawriter. Mark Lardas, an engineer, freelance writer, historian, and model-maker, lives in League City, TX. His website is marklardas.com.

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There are 11 comments.

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  1. Richard Easton Coolidge
    Richard Easton
    @RichardEaston

    Thanks for an excellent review but it’s Berger!!

    The book’s only flaw is the epilogue. Gerber lays out a vision for SpaceX with recommendations revealing he understands neither Musk’s vision nor SpaceX, despite 20 years of close association with both.

    Please elaborate what he doesn’t understand about Musk’s vision.

    • #1
  2. Seawriter Contributor
    Seawriter
    @Seawriter

    Richard Easton (View Comment):
    Please elaborate what he doesn’t understand about Musk’s vision.

    Berger​ decries Musk’s move into “far-right conservatism” (where Musk has been recently joined by right-wing extremists like Tulsi Gabbert and Robert Kennedy, Jr.) and Musk’s willingness to open “X” to disagreeable opinions (showing Berger​ misunderstands the concept of free-speech absolutist).

    Gerber also essentially recommends Musk grow into a management style more appropriate to a major corporation than SpaceX’s current risk-taking, full-throttle culture. This fundamentally misreads Musk. Musk believes unless he reaches Mars he has failed, regardless of other successes. Musk may eventually crash (Berger​’s fear), but Musk will have gotten closer to his goal than if he throttles back SpaceX to a conventional corporate culture.

    • #2
  3. Percival Thatcher
    Percival
    @Percival

    Seawriter (View Comment):
    Gerber also essentially recommends Musk grow into a management style more appropriate to a major corporation than SpaceX’s current risk-taking, full-throttle culture.

    Does he mean like Boeing?

    • #3
  4. Arahant Member
    Arahant
    @Arahant

    Seawriter (View Comment):
    Gerber decries Musk’s move into “far-right conservatism” (where Musk has been recently joined by right-wing extremists like Tulsi Gabbert and Robert Kennedy, Jr.) and Musk’s willingness to open “X” to disagreeable opinions (showing Gerber misunderstands the concept of free-speech absolutist).

    Politics can spoil so much.

    • #4
  5. Percival Thatcher
    Percival
    @Percival

    Does Gerber have a definition of “far right” that he’d care to share? Can he differentiate between “far right” and “right?” They tag the word “right” with “far” continuously. I think they do it to scare themselves and each other.

    • #5
  6. Skyler Coolidge
    Skyler
    @Skyler

    I read Walter Isaacson’s bio of Elon Musk.  It was interesting, but it was so negative.  When Elon was driven by an aspirational goal, it wasn’t bold or insightful;  Elon was acting crazy again.  Over and over, the author portrayed Elon as successful despite his madness.  It’s almost as though the author had never built a space ship company, or a company like pay pal or Tesla, etc., at all.  

    I was very disappointed at that attitude.  But it does seem like the bio was authorized by Elon.  I don’t want fawning adulation, but it would be nice if the Freudian wannabes stayed out of the equation.  Sometimes a cigar is not just a cigar:  It’s a device used to light a rocket engine.

    • #6
  7. David Carroll Thatcher
    David Carroll
    @DavidCarroll

    It would be interesting to read or hear Gerber’s reaction to this review.

    • #7
  8. Richard Easton Coolidge
    Richard Easton
    @RichardEaston

    Skyler (View Comment):

    I read Walter Isaacson’s bio of Elon Musk. It was interesting, but it was so negative. When Elon was driven by an aspirational goal, it wasn’t bold or insightful; Elon was acting crazy again. Over and over, the author portrayed Elon as successful despite his madness. It’s almost as though the author had never built a space ship company, or a company like pay pal or Tesla, etc., at all.

    I was very disappointed at that attitude. But it does seem like the bio was authorized by Elon. I don’t want fawning adulation, but it would be nice if the Freudian wannabes stayed out of the equation. Sometimes a cigar is not just a cigar: It’s a device used to light a rocket engine.

    Isaacson was constantly spouting his leftist ideas in his Musk “bio”.

    • #8
  9. mildlyo Member
    mildlyo
    @mildlyo

    I hope SpaceX moves to the equator and away from NASA/FAA restrictions as soon as possible. ITAR needs to be reconsidered for space travel 

    • #9
  10. The Reticulator Member
    The Reticulator
    @TheReticulator

    Yesterday somebody on X said that if you take away his govt subsidies, Elon is nothing.  I agreed with taking them away and giving them to those who can fail on a large scale,  such as Obama’s Solyndra or Kamala’s broadband rollout. Those are the norms,  and Musk is breaking cherished norms. 

    • #10
  11. Percival Thatcher
    Percival
    @Percival

    I think at this point NASA needs SpaceX, since their only alternative would be ULA, whose Vulcan doesn’t seem to be quite ready yet.a

    • #11
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