SpaceX
Acquired
Ben Gilbert and David Rosenthal
4.7 • 5.2K Ratings
🗓️ 26 May 2020
⏱️ 163 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
On the eve of SpaceX's historic scheduled launch of its first human spaceflight mission — both the first ever by a private company, and the first to take place on American soil in nearly a decade — we tell the incredible story of its rise from ragtag rocket jocks to the most disruptive and advanced force in aerospace today. While much of the Musk spotlight has shone on Tesla in recent years, is SpaceX actually the company that will have the greatest impact on our world's future, and perhaps even other worlds beyond? All of a sudden that idea seems a little less crazy...
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Links:
- The Tesla episode: https://www.acquired.fm/episodes/season-3-episode-1tesla
- The Ascend Conference: https://www.ascend.events
Carveouts:
- David: The Last Dance: http://www.espn.com/nba/story/_/id/28973557/the-last-dance-updates-untold-story-michael-jordan-chicago-bulls
- Ben: Michael Mauboussin on the Success Equation: https://youtu.be/1JLfqBsX5Lc
Sources:
- Elon Musk by Ashlee Vance: https://www.amazon.com/Elon-Musk-SpaceX-Fantastic-Future/dp/006230125X
- https://timelines.issarice.com/wiki/Timeline_of_SpaceX
- https://www.nasaspaceflight.com/2017/03/spacex-historic-falcon-9-re-flight-ses-10/
- https://www.reddit.com/r/spacex/wiki/economics
- https://www.space.com/40547-spacex-rocket-evolution.html
- https://waitbutwhy.com/2015/08/how-and-why-spacex-will-colonize-mars.html
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SpaceX
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elon_Musk
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_D._Griffin
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jim_Cantrell
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tom_Mueller
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gwynne_Shotwell
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commercial_Orbital_Transportation_Services
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_Act_Agreement
- https://www.spacex.com/mission/
- https://venturebeat.com/2008/08/06/private-rocket-company-spacex-gets-20m-from-the-founders-fund/
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Falcon_9_and_Falcon_Heavy_launches
- https://www.space.com/40547-spacex-rocket-evolution.html
- https://www.businessinsider.com/spacex-starlink-spacecraft-pictures-elon-musk-2018-2
- https://arstechnica.com/science/2018/09/inside-the-eight-desperate-weeks-that-saved-spacex-from-ruin/
- https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/22/science/spacex-nasa-launch.html
- https://graphics.reuters.com/SPACE-EXPLORATION-SPACEX/010091Q82NF/index.html
- https://www.cnbc.com/2019/05/31/elon-musk-spacex-is-now-worth-more-than-tesla.html
- https://www.teslarati.com/spacex-wins-launch-contract-egyptian-telecom-company/
- https://www.teslarati.com/spacex-falcon-heavy-booster-overboard/
- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sYocHwhfFDc
- https://oig.nasa.gov/docs/IG-18-016.pdf
- https://everydayastronaut.com/will-the-falcon-9-actually-be-reusable-or-just-refurbish-able-like-the-space-shuttle/
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Dude, you got to get on Starlink. I know, I know. Can't wait. |
| 0:05.8 | Fix up this latency in a heartbeat. Seriously. Welcome to Season 6, episode 7 of Acquired, the podcast about great technology companies and the stories behind them. |
| 0:26.7 | I'm Ben Gilbert. |
| 0:27.9 | I'm David Rosenthal. |
| 0:29.4 | And we are your hosts. |
| 0:31.1 | Today we are talking about SpaceX, the company that will this very |
| 0:34.8 | week be attempting to launch humans into space as a private company and make the |
| 0:40.0 | United States a spacefaring nation for the first time since the end of the |
| 0:44.3 | space shuttle program which unbelievably was it a decade ago. David how crazy is |
| 0:49.9 | it that it's already been a decade since the end of the shuttle program and also how crazy is that we haven't |
| 0:55.3 | sent humans to space as the US since then. |
| 0:58.1 | So crazy. I remember when that happened just like how disappointing that was, which makes what's about to happen so exciting. |
| 1:07.0 | Yeah because I mean there was no date set for when it was going to start again. |
| 1:11.8 | We decided okay the shuttle programs coming to the end, you know, it was |
| 1:16.1 | expensive, it was dangerous, that it had its mishaps, and there's later with a date, a plan, and a mission, which we'll get into you. |
| 1:35.0 | Indeed. |
| 1:36.0 | All right, so listeners, here's the things that I knew about SpaceX, more or less, before we |
| 1:41.3 | started researching. |
| 1:42.3 | They're the first private company ever to launch a |
| 1:45.2 | rocket to orbit, recover it, and reuse it. They can do all three of those things simultaneously |
| 1:51.8 | where they bring two rockets back down on land and one rocket back down on a boat, almost a thousand miles away. Pretty unbelievable. |
| 2:00.0 | They're, of course, led by the controversial genius, Elon Musk, or I should say genius entrepreneur. |
... |
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