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Liftoff: Elon Musk and the Desperate Early Days That Launched SpaceX by [Eric Berger]

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Eric Berger

Liftoff: Elon Musk and the Desperate Early Days That Launched SpaceX Kindle Edition

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‘Just read it.’ Elon Musk

The dramatic inside story of the first four historic flights that launched SpaceX—and Elon Musk—from a shaky startup into the world's leading edge rocket company.

SpaceX has enjoyed a miraculous decade. Less than 20 years after its founding, it boasts the largest constellation of commercial satellites in orbit, has pioneered reusable rockets, and in 2020 became the first private company to launch human beings into orbit. Half a century after the space race SpaceX is pushing forward into the cosmos, laying the foundation for our exploration of other worlds.

But before it became one of the most powerful players in the aerospace industry, SpaceX was a fledgling startup, scrambling to develop a single workable rocket before the money ran dry. The engineering challenge was immense; numerous other private companies had failed similar attempts. And even if SpaceX succeeded, they would then have to compete for government contracts with titans such as Lockheed Martin and Boeing, who had tens of thousands of employees and tens of billions of dollars in annual revenue. SpaceX had fewer than 200 employees and the relative pittance of $100 million in the bank.

In Liftoff, Eric Berger takes readers inside the wild early days that made SpaceX. Focusing on the company’s first four launches of the Falcon 1 rocket, he charts the bumpy journey from scrappy underdog to aerospace pioneer. drawing upon exclusive interviews with dozens of former and current engineers, designers, mechanics, and executives, including Elon Musk. The enigmatic Musk, who founded the company with the dream of one day settling Mars, is the fuel that propels the book, with his daring vision for the future of space.

Print length

341 pages
Language

English
Publisher

William Collins
Publication date

2 March 2021
File size

4383 KB
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Product description

Review

"A colorful page-turner that focuses on the downs and ups of the early years of SpaceX." -- New York Times Book Review

“Liftoff reads like something out of the golden age of Science Fiction but this isn’t a novel by Robert Heinlein or Arthur C. Clarke. This is the true, astounding story of the men and women who spun those sci-fi dreams into reality.” -- Homer Hickam, #1 New York Times Bestselling Author of Rocket Boys

"The elegant brilliance of the engineering that allows today’s space rockets to land themselves back on earth—or at sea—right way up, and on target to the inch, is all the doing of the teams assembled by Elon Musk—and the story of how he did it, and how for sure he will get us to Mars whether we like it or not, is told in appropriately stellar fashion by Eric Berger in a book that held me captive, in earth orbit, from prologue to epilogue, countdown to splashdown." -- Simon Winchester, New York Times Bestselling Author of The Perfectionists

"A colorful page-turner." -- WALTER ISAACSON, New York Times Book Review

"Page-turning. ... Eric Berger writes with the kind of hard-won insider authority that only comes through covering the nuts and bolts of the commercial space industry for the past twenty years." -- Forbes

“Eric Berger has followed the exploits of SpaceX and its founder, Elon Musk, from its very early days. In Liftoff, Eric relates the many personal accounts collected in one-on-one interviews with Musk and many of his key leaders and associates. He chronicles the frenetic pace of Falcon 1 development and the toll it took on many of the early employees. This is a book that will hold your rapt attention from start to finish.” -- Charles Bolden, Former NASA Administrator and Four-Time Astronaut

"[Berger] depicts race-against-the-clock crises as fast-paced as a thriller, with moments reminiscent of Apollo 13 or The Martian. ... An exciting and insightful read." -- Booklist

“Eric Berger brings to life the passion and sacrifice of the early SpaceX team as they navigated through countless obstacles toward unlikely success. The skillfully described technical details, paired with a candid glimpse into individual personalities, makes Liftoff a must read for space enthusiasts and novices alike.” -- KAREN NYBERG, NASA Astronaut

“This might be the best space book I've ever read. Liftoff will prove to be a defining story not only for the commercial space industry, but for the Space Age writ large, and there's no one better than Eric Berger to tell it.” -- KELLIE GERARDI, author of Not Necessarily Rocket Science

"Compelling. ... Great reading. ... An essential, unofficial reference test for what to do (and not do) as space flight goes commercial. ... Fascinating." -- New Scientist

"Does a fine job of telling the white-knuckle story of how SpaceX was created in 2002 and came close to collapse several times." -- Financial Times

"Thrilling. ... There is a self-assured momentum about the narrative, even as it describes infuriating setbacks and strokes of incredible luck." -- Reason --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

About the Author

Eric Berger is a reporter and editor based in Houston. After a long career in the Houston Chronicle, he joined Ars Technica in 2015 as the site’s senior space editor, covering SpaceX, NASA, and everything beyond. He was a Pulitzer Prize finalist for his coverage of Hurricane Ike in the Houston Chronicle in 2008. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Product details

ASIN ‏ : ‎ B08F28WBJD
Publisher ‏ : ‎ William Collins (2 March 2021)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
File size ‏ : ‎ 4383 KB
Text-to-Speech ‏ : ‎ Enabled
Screen Reader ‏ : ‎ Supported
Enhanced typesetting ‏ : ‎ Enabled
X-Ray ‏ : ‎ Enabled
Word Wise ‏ : ‎ Enabled
Print length ‏ : ‎ 341 pages

Best Sellers Rank: #53,714 in Kindle Store (See Top 100 in Kindle Store)
- #235 in Engineering & Technology (Kindle Store)
- #1,448 in Biographies & Autobiographies (Kindle Store)
- #1,644 in Engineering & Technology (Books)

Customer Reviews:
2,933 ratings

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Eric Berger

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Eric Berger is the senior space editor at Ars Technica, covering everything from new space to NASA policy. Eric has an astronomy degree from the University of Texas and a master's in journalism from the University of Missouri. He previously worked at the Houston Chronicle for 17 years, where the paper was a Pulitzer Prize finalist in 2009 for his coverage of Hurricane Ike. A certified meteorologist, Eric founded Space City Weather and lives in Houston.

Customer reviews

4.8 out of 5

2,933 global ratings

5 star		83%
4 star		13%
3 star		3%
2 star		1%
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Top reviews from India

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A Reader

Exciting account of the lowest cost rockets to space!

Reviewed in India 🇮🇳 on 5 April 2022

Verified Purchase

This is an excellent account of the two decades long struggle to bring the cost of space travel down!

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Akshay

Unbelievable story, written phenomenally!

Reviewed in India 🇮🇳 on 21 September 2021

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One of the best non-fiction books I've read. Not only does the Berger tell a story that seems so unbelievable, he also writes it like a fast paced movie screenplay with tremendous emotion. I found myself gasping for breath while reading several parts. Quickest read for a book this size in a long long time for me. Top tier, highly recommended 👌👌

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Gajanan k.

best book I've ever read

Reviewed in India 🇮🇳 on 30 September 2021

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if you are a SpaceX fan, this book is a must read! this book covers the story of SpaceX's beginning and and early days. even if you are not a book guy, you will still definitely love this book!

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The Rocket Guy

Must Read for Space Lovers and Elon fans

Reviewed in India 🇮🇳 on 31 July 2021

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The perfect icing on the cake to know more about Elon and SpaceX! Before the end of this decade,Elon Musk is gonna something do the world has never seen before!

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Amazon Customer

Written in very well. Able to imagine the struggle of earlier SpaceX employees

Reviewed in India 🇮🇳 on 25 May 2021

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One of the best book I have red it. Hats off to dedication level showed by founding SpaceX employees. Very well written by Eric. As said by Elon, ' Just read it'.

Reviewed in India 🇮🇳 on 10 July 2021

Verified Purchase

My experience of reading is wonderful

Reviewed in India 🇮🇳 on 24 April 2021

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Almost anyone can live like a spaceX engineer through this book without actually going through the hardships of actual engineers.

Reviewed in India 🇮🇳 on 28 March 2021

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Very well written. Describes the problems and the successes of the taem. I never thought that so much work was involved. I fully recommend this book

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Top reviews from other countries

A. Mcalinden

Not Quite Up To Eleven, But A Solid (Falcon) Nine

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on 14 March 2021

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In the summer of 2019, I relived the moon landing through two great pieces of audiovisual media. The BBC World Service podcast "13 Minutes To The Moon", a deep dive into the entire Apollo programme, and the same story told visually in Todd Douglas Miller's astonishing "Apollo 11", which I would urge you to see on as big a screen as possible.

They both reawakened a long dormant interest in space for me. I read a lot of tech news, so had vague awareness of the big milestones of SpaceX, but can't claim to have followed them.

So from that point on, I immersed myself in both the spaceflight history of a half century or more ago, and the spaceflight present; where once or twice a month - sometimes once or twice a *week*, SpaceX put a payload in orbit then bring back the first stage of the rocket that did it. Kennedy may have said, "we do these things not because they were easy, but because they are hard"; yet SpaceX have made launches seem as routine as a supermarket shop.

Eric Berger's book shows you, starting from zero, how they got there - through teamwork and the efforts of many individuals, many of whose stories we hear in detail as the narrative thrums along. Like so many American journalists. Berger has the ability to conjure an evocative sense of place and time; and there is one sequence in particular that cries out to be dramatised in a big budget movie one day.

If there is a downside then its an inevitable one when dealing with billionaires like Musk. There's no doubt the book has benefited from astonishing levels of access to the key players, but there are only a couple of places that are less than hagiographic in their treatment of his flawed genius. But this is a minor quibble, because it's not about Musk.

7 people found this helpful

N. Reeves

Excellent & Enjoyable!

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on 8 October 2021

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I got this book as I recently became an avid follower of the modern day space race.
But what I didn't know much about was how & why Elon Musk got started with Space X.

Eric Berger takes the reader from the beginning right up to the successful first flights of the falcon 1 & how that led on to the falcon 9.

You don't need an engineering degree to follow this book. It focuses primarily on the human stories, the struggles and the hardship and the joyous moments too. The author was given full access to the staff, and weaves a great narrative from their accounts that's both an enjoyable read and very insightful. He doesn't shy away from hard truths, Elon Musk does not always come up smelling of roses & it's all the better for that.

3 people found this helpful

EngineLover

Amazing story of SpaceX's crucial early years

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on 7 March 2021

Verified Purchase

This is a fantastic book. I've followed SpaceX since before their first launch attempt in 2006 and read a lot about the company over the years. There is still much in this book that was either new to me or for the first time gave the detailed inside track on what really happened. Eric Berger has collected together a wonderful set of stories about the early years of SpaceX from the people who were there. A real strength of the book is the breadth of people involved. Elon remains the driving force behind the company, but it's great to read about so many others' huge contributions. Including people not in the public eye and who are not known outside the core space community.
Buy this book, you won't regret it.

5 people found this helpful

M. Venner

A great leader needs a great tribe

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on 19 June 2021

Verified Purchase

I'm a huge Elon fan, I follow him relentlessly and read everything I can. This book takes you on a fantastic journey from the mad hat vision to where SpaceX is now.

What I like about the book is the way the employees are depicted. We all know Elon is a great visionary but without such a great tribe he wouldn't be as successful.

The stories are fascinating and demonstrate the dedication of the employees at SpaceX, they all believed in the vision and gave up so much to make it happen.

I think this book should be dedicated to the fantastic staff who helped make Elons vision come to reality.

Great read

3 people found this helpful

Mr Leighton

Fiery end down, pointy end up.

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on 7 March 2021

Verified Purchase

Thoroughly enjoyed this as a great story about the people striving to do something that they were told over and over they were going to fail at and fail they did, a lot with all the stress that came with it. Also if you are into rocket tech its a no brainier.

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