3/4: Liftoff: Elon Musk and the Desperate Early Days That Launched SpaceX by Eric Berger (Author)
The John Batchelor Show
John Batchelor
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🗓️ 3 January 2023
⏱️ 13 minutes
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3/4: Liftoff: Elon Musk and the Desperate Early Days That Launched SpaceX by Eric Berger (Author)
https://www.amazon.com/Liftoff-Desperate-Early-Launched-SpaceX/dp/0062979973/ref=tmm_hrd_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=&sr=
In Liftoff, Eric Berger, senior space editor at Ars Technica, 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. We travel from company headquarters in El Segundo, to the isolated Texas ranchland where they performed engine tests, to Kwajalein, the tiny atoll in the Pacific where SpaceX launched the Falcon 1. Berger has reported on SpaceX for more than a decade, enjoying unparalleled journalistic access to the company’s inner workings. Liftoff is the culmination of these efforts, 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.
Transcript
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| 0:24.5 | Oh bugging. |
| 0:25.7 | Comparachannel4.com-sash-barified. |
| 0:33.3 | I'm John Bachelors, I'm with Eric Berger. |
| 0:36.3 | Elon Musk and the desperate early days that launch SpaceX his book Lift Off. |
| 0:41.2 | It is now 2007. |
| 0:43.5 | The spring again, March of 2007. |
| 0:46.5 | We're back at Omelette Island. |
| 0:48.6 | The crew is gathered again for the second flight. |
| 0:52.0 | There are some details however we need to introduce. |
| 0:55.6 | Eric, before we set the rocket up and light the candle, what is the slosh concern? |
| 1:02.6 | What are the baffles for the second stage? |
| 1:05.2 | So the idea is that as you go up in a rocket, your fuel drains down. |
| 1:10.5 | Right? It's liquid oxygen. |
| 1:13.6 | It's caracene and the tank's empty and you've got to somehow manage it to make sure that the fuel keeps coming out. |
| 1:23.3 | So you pressurize that space and sort of it comes down. |
| 1:27.3 | It's less of an issue with the first stage, but when you get to the second stage, you're in microgravity. |
| 1:34.8 | So you don't have gravity pulling down on the rocket. |
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