Fellow space enthusiasts,
I have just read 1st chapter of following book – and it reminded me of John Walker’s Autodesk File, Meets SpaceX – AWESOME so far.
Put this one on your reading list!
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That is a superb book. Few people know the extent to which the early days of SpaceX (development and test of the Falcon 1 and 9 prior to receiving the NASA contract for Falcon 9) were a close-run thing. If the fourth Falcon 1 hadn’t reached orbit, after three consecutive failures, odds are they would have packed it in at that point.
The saga of attempting to launch Falcon 1 from Vandenberg before giving up and decamping to Kwajalein is a great illustration of the phenomenon I describe as “To you, it’s your career. To them (in this case the U.S. Air Force), you’re an annoyance.”
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I am on the last 60 pages of the approximately 260 page MASTERPIECE Liftoff.
I feel bad for science fiction writer John Varley (author of Red Thunder, a science fiction journey to Mars) John Walker's Reading List
because the SCIENCE FACT of early SpaceX is a bit more thrilling!
I will not give away all the surprises, and there are many – but my summary is a band of determined individuals can leapfrog the establishment in a relatively short amount of time.
Liftoff is a must read.
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