This is CBS Eye on the World.

Here's John Batchelor.

Reentry, the new book by Eric Berger,

Senior Space Rider for Ars Technica,

SpaceX, Elon Musk, and the reusable rockets

that launched a second space age.

Eric, congratulations, and we go immediately to Guadalajara, Mexico. It is September

2016. Elon Musk, a well-to-do success for Tesla, is speaking on his vision for SpaceX. It is surprising in that it begins to sound like the science fiction books that I bought

in drugstores in the 1950s and 60s. It's about Mars. What does Mr. Musk's tell the room,

and how do they react to the idea that he's building a space company to leave the Earth? Good evening to you.

Good evening, John. It's a remarkable speech. It does feel very much like science fiction.

He's showing pictures of these spaceships, you know, with dozens of people on their way to Mars, symphonies in space,

this grandiose architecture with a fully reusable massive rocket.

And it was remarkable because, you know, just a few weeks earlier, his rocket had blown up

for the second time in less than a year and a half. And so everyone was sort of thinking this

was pretty outlandish.

And so I think it was a mixture of audaciousness and optimism, to put it politely.

There were certainly a lot of skepticism in the space industry and even in the room around

the speech.

But at the same time, even even back then more than eight years ago

Musk had a very strong cult following and so it was in Mexico and there were

hundreds of people cheering and thronging and it was it was quite a scene what is

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