How SpaceX, NASA, And COTS Created The New Space Industry: Space To Grow Book Club (Part 1)

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