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A Review Of Eric Berger's "Liftoff"

By Keith Cowing
NASA Watch
April 1, 2021
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A Review Of Eric Berger's "Liftoff"

Liftoff: Elon Musk and the Desperate Early Days That Launched SpaceX – Book Review
“This retro future we are now witnessing is happening in many companies in many countries. But it can be traced back to one company – and one person: SpaceX, the brainchild of Elon Musk. With the notion of reusing rockets now accepted fact due to the Falcon 9, Musk is now building shiny stainless steel rockets in the middle of nowhere in Texas and blowing them up on a regular basis. And as soon as he can he plans to send people around the Moon and then to the surface of Mars. And when he does it will be in shiny aerodynamically-shaped spaceships from more than half a century ago.
The story of SpaceX – utterly synonymous with the story of Elon Musk – is the subject of Eric Berger’s marvelous book “Liftoff”. In a nutshell this book is a day-to-day diary of frequent near death corporate experiences, world-class MacGyvering, and engineers propelled by one part caffeine, one part RP-1, and one part dreams. This is all mixed in with in-your-face political jockeying, and a child-like drive on the part of Musk who read far too much science fiction as a kid and has the means to make it become reality. So he does.”

NASA Watch founder, Explorers Club Fellow, ex-NASA, Away Teams, Journalist, Space & Astrobiology, Lapsed climber.

13 responses to “A Review Of Eric Berger's "Liftoff"”

  1. ed2291 says:
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    This is a book that is both fun and interesting. Future generations will understand the huge debt we owe Elon Musk and wonder at the corruption and incompetence of our government in space exploration which lasted for half a century.

  2. fcrary says:
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    Having read the book, I can say it is definitely interesting, well researched and well written. It’s very much worth buying and reading. But I will say it isn’t as great as some people make it. I’d give it a 8 or 8.5 out of 10, while others would give it a 9.5 or 10. But then, I’m always critical about things, and I don’t think I’ve ever ready a book I’d give a 10 out of 10 rating… (And, by the way, the recipe for Turkish goulash sounds interesting. But as a purist, it isn’t real Hungarian golyas or much like the Viennese or yugoslav variants. But it does sound like it would be quite nice.)

    • Jack says:
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      I’m very critical regarding books too but “Making the Atomic Bomb” by Richard Rhodes is a 10+ book.

      • zhaphod says:
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        If u liked that book u will like the Quantum book by Manjit Kumar equally. audio book is phenomenal for both of them.

      • fcrary says:
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        I also thought Mr. Rhodes Dark Sun: The Making of the Hydrogen Bomb and Energy: A Human History were also quite good. Not as good as his Making of the Atomic Bomb but certainly worth reading.

  3. Matthew Black says:
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    This is on my acquisition list for sure.

  4. Peter Morris says:
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    I enjoyed this book enormously. It is quite amazing Musk and SpaceX survived the early years. That their fourth rocket made orbit reads more like Hollywood than reality – but it did! Really recommended.

    • Steve Pemberton says:
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      It’s amazing how times have changed. The company would have likely folded if that fourth flight had failed. Yet now when the fourth Starship high altitude test flight ended in an explosion like the three before it, Musk was able to joke about it, having confidence that they will work out the problems like they have before. In fact he speculated that the problems may have already been solved in the next test vehicle flying soon which has several upgrades. This shows just how much they have advanced in the ensuing twelve years.

  5. mfwright says:
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    Author Eric Berger looked at the career of entrepreneur Elon Musk and
    the history of his rocket company SpaceX. This virtual event was hosted
    by Blue Willow Bookshop in Houston.
    https://www.c-span.org/vide

  6. rb1957 says:
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    thank goodness Elon read too much science fiction ! Thank goodness he didn’t take “you can’t do that” as an answer, and believed that with enough money and effort you can accomplish just about anything.

  7. Todd Austin says:
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    Eric’s book was a page turner for me, and that takes some doing these days with so many things demanding my attention. There was plenty of new material and I much appreciated all the information he sourced right from the participants. Thanks to them for giving their time to the creation of this book. Eric does a very solid job in his regular reporting gig and that gave him great access, no doubt, for writing what is likely to be the definitive book on this subject, at least as far as mass-market tomes go. Ask your local library to pick up a copy. It’s a worthy read from many perspectives (space, entrepreneurship & business, NASA history, …).

    • fcrary says:
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      To me, some of the most interesting parts of the book weren’t about the technology or the company. They were about the people involved and things like living and working on Omelek Island (which is about 200 meters wide and was essentially empty when SpaceX rented it, and which had very limited transportation to and from the rest of Kwajalein.)