Christian Davenport: Rocket Dreams: Musk, Bezos

[yg1968]

Rocket Dreams: Musk, Bezos, and the Inside Story of the New, Trillion-Dollar Space Race by Christian Davenport

Moon landings and space walks once captivated the public’s attention. But, in recent decades, the U.S. space enterprise has felt moribund. Now, that’s finally about to change.

A fleet of powerful new rockets is poised to take humans into the cosmos more than ever before. A lunar land rush has sparked a geopolitical competition among nations. And the world’s two richest men have engaged in escalating brinkmanship, as NASA and the U.S. government embraces Silicon Valley innovation to jump-start the nation’s ambitions.

Space has entered a golden age, and this is just the beginning. In this gripping work, award-winning Washington Post writer Christian Davenport chronicles the mad scramble to shape humanity’s off-planet future. He takes readers behind the scenes at NASA and the Pentagon as China’s aggressive moon mining plans raise alarms, onto the sprawling Cape Canaveral factory where Blue Origin is working toward Amazon-style lunar deliveries, and onto SpaceX launch pads as Musk’s engineers log 100-hour weeks—leaving veteran astronauts marveling that they’re now operating “flying iPhones.”

What will happen as human ambition outpaces governmental regulation? Which country will win the race back to the moon? Was Donald Trump’s much-derided creation of the Space Force a surprising act of foresight, and will the U.S. finally make a real push to the moon and eventually toward Mars?

Masterfully paced, rigorously reported, and vividly told, Rocket Dreams offers a riveting, fly-on-the-wall account of the grit-fueled global battle to push humankind further into the cosmos—revealing that the science fiction dreams of the last century may soon become our reality.

https://www.amazon.com/Rocket-Dreams-Bezos-Inside-Trillion-Dollar/dp/0593594118

[yg1968]

Review: Rocket Dreams
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/5061/1

https://twitter.com/wapodavenport/status/1970660747983061438

[yg1968]

https://twitter.com/offnom/status/1968709135840497823

[catdlr]

CBS News
@CBSNews
Elon Musk and his company SpaceX are “far ahead” of Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin in the space race “and have been for a while,” says CBS News contributor Christian Davenport, discussing his new book “Rocket Dreams,” which examines the competition between the two. “It’s attributed to their culture. I mean, he is relentless —Elon — and he drives his employees,” Davenport tells CBS News’ Major Garrett on “The Takeout.”

https://twitter.com/CBSNews/status/1968446650206347670

[yg1968]

I have read about a third of the book and it is very good. Very well written. It has a lot of information that wasn't previously public. The book talks about Bezos, Musk, Bridenstine when he was at NASA, VP Pence, etc.

[StraumliBlight]

The program will begin with a fireside chat between Kari A. Bingen, Director of the Aerospace Security Project and Senior Fellow with the Defense and Security Department, and Christian Davenport, staff writer at The Washington Post.

[RedLineTrain]

I think it's a great book.  Of the two, it's apparent that Davenport has a lot more material related to Bezos.  But he did get at least one interview with Musk.

[yg1968]

Jim Bridenstine was interviewed for the book. So there is a lot of interesting details about Artemis under the Trump I Administration.

[yg1968]

[Oersted]

Finished this book and I think it is a must-read for anyone interested in SpaceX, Blue Origin and their rivalry. Well-researched and superbly written.