S8 Ep659: 4. The Final Chance: A Heroic Rescue and Successful Orbit Guest Eric Berger describes the dramatic fourth Falcon 1 mission in late 2008. To meet a tight deadline, the team transported the rocket via a military C-17, but the booster began imploding

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John Batchelor

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🗓️ 29 March 2026

⏱️ 10 minutes

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Summary

4. The Final Chance: A Heroic Rescue and Successful Orbit Guest Eric Berger describes the dramatic fourth Falcon 1 mission in late 2008. To meet a tight deadline, the team transported the rocket via a military C-17, but the booster began imploding during descent. Engineer Zach Dunn saved the mission by crawling inside the collapsing rocket to manually equalize the pressure. On September 28, the fourth launch successfully reached orbit, carrying a dummy payload named "RAT". This achievement occurred amidst the global financial crisis and solidified SpaceX's status as a legitimate rocket company, establishing enduring traditions like the four-leaf clover mission patch. (4)
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Transcript

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0:21.5	So the next time you need someone to get the job done right,
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0:26.8	Visit Indeed.com slash next hire and sponsor your job today.
0:34.9	I'm John Baxter.
0:36.6	This is Eric Berger's liftoff.
0:39.7	Elon Musk in the desperate early days that launched SpaceX.
0:43.3	It is now 2008.
0:44.9	The markets have collapsed.
0:46.6	The dollar is damaged.
0:49.6	The money markets are damaged.
0:51.9	There's no money anywhere, and we're not clear that Wall Street can stay open.
0:55.5	I'm just mentioning that that's at the same time that Elon Musk says, I have enough money to make
1:00.8	one more test if you can put it together. So very quickly, the whole team gathers. This is very much,
1:07.6	again, like Tom Swift, Jr. We all gather together and we're going to build that rocket and go to the moon.
1:13.6	Okay, fine.
1:14.6	They have a limited amount of time.
1:16.6	They assemble the first and second stage, but they don't have the time that it takes to get it by barge out to Omelech, which would take a month.
1:25.8	So how do they convince the Air Force to give them a C-17?
1:28.9	What's the magic, Eric?
1:32.0	The magic was they had contacts in the Air Force, and a guy named Brian Belty and others were
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