3/8: THERE WAS A REPORTED PUSH TO GET STARSHIP TEST #8 TO ORBIT:.Reentry: SpaceX, Elon Musk, and the Reusable Rockets that Launched a Second Space Age Hardcover – by Eric Berger (Author)2
The John Batchelor Show
John Batchelor
4.5 • 2.8K Ratings
🗓️ 17 March 2025
⏱️ 13 minutes
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Summary
JUNE 1961
https://www.amazon.com/Reentry-SpaceX-Reusable-Rockets-Launched/dp/1637745273/ref=tmm_hrd_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=&sr=
One company dominates the modern space industry: SpaceX, founded by controversial entrepreneur Elon Musk in 2002, now sending more payloads into orbit than the rest of the world combined. But Musk didn’t do it alone—the saga of SpaceX is the story of a diverse cadre of true believers in the limitless potential of space travel.
For the first time, Reentry relates the definitive chronicle of how this daring team was able to redefine what it takes to reach the stars.
With Pulitzer Prize–nominated journalist Eric Berger, author of Liftoff, as your guide, you’ll accompany SpaceX’s innovative thinkers during their toughest trials and most audacious moments, including:
- Creating the first orbital rockets that land by themselves and fly again
- Transporting a 120-foot rocket from Texas to Florida
- Recovering from a “Hell’s Bells” accident before the first Falcon Heavy launch
- Frantically searching the ocean for the first rocket that splashed down intact
- Identifying the $20 part that led to a rocket exploding in flight
- Slicing up an engine days before it launched into space
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | This is CBS, I'm The World. |
| 0:03.0 | I'm John Batchelor, with Eric Berger, the author of the new book Reentry, SpaceX Elon Musk and the Reusable Rockets that launched a second space age. |
| 0:13.0 | Not a reusable rocket yet, soon, soon. |
| 0:16.0 | However, what it needs SpaceX is a source of income to fund all of these madcap adventurers to get to Mars to live there. |
| 0:24.9 | Now, no one lives plushly for SpaceX. |
| 0:28.7 | Eric goes through a long list of people who give up a great deal of their young lives. |
| 0:34.7 | I think the average age at this point of the SpaceX employees is at 26. |
| 0:40.4 | Yeah. |
| 0:40.6 | And when they say party, that means they go to bed a little inebriated and wake up a little hungover and go back to work for 40 or 80 hours that day. |
| 0:50.3 | And yet they need a source of income to maintain the California headquarters, |
| 0:57.1 | McGregor test site, and the ability to move back and forth with boosters. |
| 1:02.4 | Along comes NASA to say, perhaps you can build a spacecraft to go to and from the ISS. |
| 1:14.8 | This is necessary because one Russia and two shuttle. |
| 1:22.2 | Explain, Eric, why did they need SpaceX? NASA. Why did NASA need SpaceX? So NASA at the time was looking for other providers of cargo services at the International Space Station. Japan had been doing some of that, |
| 1:28.5 | Europe had been doing some of that, but they were retiring those vehicles, and there was the |
| 1:31.6 | potential the space shuttle was going to stop flying as well. And so it went into industry and |
| 1:36.2 | said, hey, you know, we'd like several tons of cargo delivered each year to the International |
| 1:41.7 | Space Station. That's water, food, science experiments, and so forth for the astronauts on board. |
| 1:47.0 | You know, do you think you can step up? |
| 1:49.0 | And one of the companies that said yes was SpaceX. |
| 1:52.0 | And so NASA was, you know, provided some critical funding in 2006. |
| 1:57.0 | And then again in 2009 to help SpaceX develop the Dragon spacecraft that would provide those services |
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