Thinking On Paper Blue Origin, SpaceX & The NASA Funded Private Sector: Space to Grow Book Club
SpaceX launches 135 rockets a year. NASA's shuttles launched five. SpaceX delivers cargo to orbit for $2,800 per kilo. The shuttles cost $90,000. In fifteen years, one company did what a government agency couldn't do in sixty.
Mark and Jeremy work through chapters one to three of Space to Grow by Matthew Weinzierl and Brendan Rosseau, covering the three-act history of NASA and the birth of the private space industry.
This episode covers:
- How the Apollo programme's end and the Columbia disaster forced NASA to open the gates to private companies
- The COTS contracts that shifted financial risk onto private companies and drove innovation
- Elon Musk's failed Russia trip and the decision to build SpaceX from scratch
- Three rocket explosions, $100 million left, and a fourth rocket built from spare parts in a shed
- Why someone had to climb inside a rocket mid-flight to hammer out the dents
- SpaceX suing the Air Force over launch contracts and winning · Jeff Bezos at five years old watching Apollo, then quietly building Blue Origin for a decade
- The four principles behind SpaceX's success: iteration, vertical integration, reusability, and culture
- "I'm going to build the Honda Civic of space rockets"
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TIMESTAMPS
(00:00) Trailer
(01:02) Space To Grow
(01:55) Incorporate Space Into Your Thinking
(03:28) The Apollo Program Ends
(05:43) The NASA Budget & Shuttle Launches
(07:51) Bush & The Aldridge Commission
(08:36) COTS (Commercial Orbital Transportation Services)
(10:27) Blue Origin, Bezos & O'Neill
(14:40) A Quick History Of SpaceX
(18:23) Falcon Blows Up
(20:24) Elon Sues The Airforce
(22:04) SpaceX Launch Costs
(23:45) The Honda Civic Of Space Rockets