Liftoff, by Eric Berger: a book explainer

Narration

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1. 0:00On May thirtieth, twenty twenty, a SpaceX rocket carried two NASA astronauts toward orbit.
2. 0:07It was the first time a private company had launched people into orbit.
3. 0:12Eric Berger's book Liftoff goes back to the years when that company was fighting to survive.
4. 0:19Published in twenty twenty one, Liftoff follows SpaceX from its founding in two thousand two, through the first four launches of its first rocket, Falcon One.
5. 0:30Berger, a space reporter, built it from interviews with the engineers, technicians, and executives who were there.
6. 0:39The odds were absurd.
7. 0:41Boeing and Lockheed Martin each had tens of thousands of employees, and tens of billions of dollars in yearly revenue.
8. 0:49SpaceX had fewer than two hundred people, and by two thousand eight, money for only one more rocket.
9. 0:57To launch, the team went to Omelek, a tiny island in Kwajalein Atoll, in the Marshall Islands, in the middle of the Pacific.
10. 1:07Much of the book is set there: engineers racing deadlines, in heat and salt, cut off from everything.
11. 1:15On the first flight, in March two thousand six, a fuel leak started a fire, and the rocket was lost.
12. 1:22On the second flight, in March two thousand seven, the rocket reached space, about two hundred eighty nine kilometers up, but a control problem cut the second stage short.
13. 1:33On the third flight, in August two thousand eight, the first stage bumped into the second after separation.
14. 1:40Three launches, three failures.
15. 1:44According to Musk, the fourth Falcon One was the last rocket they could pay for.
16. 1:49On September twenty eighth, two thousand eight, it reached orbit.
17. 1:55It was the first privately developed, liquid-fueled rocket to reach orbit.
18. 2:01Three months later, NASA awarded SpaceX a contract worth up to one point six billion dollars, for twelve cargo flights to the space station.
19. 2:11It opened the way from Falcon One to Falcon Nine and Dragon, which first reached the station in twenty twelve.
20. 2:19Liftoff is less a Musk biography than a portrait of a small team that learned by failing, quickly and cheaply.
21. 2:27How SpaceX works today started here.
22. 2:30Liftoff, by Eric Berger, published in twenty twenty one.