This is

CBS I on the World Hotel Mars.

Episode N.

David Livingston, Dr. Space of the Space Show is here with me as my colleague and co-pilot.

And we're thrilled to welcome Eric Berger of ours Technica, most importantly, the author of a new book.

I'm looking forward to the book and to speaking to

Eric at length about it. Reentry, SpaceX, Elon Musk, and the reusable rockets that

launched a second space age.

Eric, congratulations and good evening.

And the reusable part is the genius.

However, I read an urban legend that it comes from the 20th century and it was a

NASA idea. Is that accurate, Eric? Good evening.

Actually, the origins were in the Department of Defense. It was part of the Star Wars initiative that they realized that servicing such a fleet of satellites would be better off with a reusable launch system and that grew into the DCX which NASA took over and then ultimately

canceled. And some of those basic learnings, yes, were the foundation of the reusable

Falcon 9 rocket. So the reusable was one of those things they put on the shelf for decades? How long before Musk took it up?

It was the DCX played out in the 1990s so it was you know it was it was a decade or two before SpaceX finally got to it but the thing is you know

nothing that SpaceX doing is really something that hasn't been envisioned before kind of the genius of it is that they're actually just doing it, you know, as opposed to it being talked about and theorized about.

Wonderful. Well, I look forward to the book and your first book was such a smashing success, especially that part where they're flying the

last test they have the money for out to the quadriline and the booster collapses that's all I can think to say what

caused that collapse on airway it was something about air pressure wasn't

Eric yeah well the plane was coming down and the cabin was repressurizing and that caused the pressure inside the

rocket to be lower than outside and that caused the rocket to start crumpling and folding in on itself.

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