Say what you will about Elon Musk… go ahead, I’ll wait… you get it out of your system? Okay, so putting all that aside, if you ever thought your job was hard, imagine working for a huge nerd with a lofty vision and seemingly endless amounts of money who just wants to get. things. done. That was the early days of SpaceX.
Liftoff: Elon Musk and the Desperate Early Days That Launched SpaceX
Author: Eric Berger
Pages: 288
Format: Hardcover
Published: March 2, 2021
Publisher: William Morrow
View on Goodreads
Date Completed: December 1, 2024
My rating: 
Thoughts
I picked up this book because the November 2024 Planetary Society Book Club pick is essentially the sequel to this one following SpaceX’s journey toward reusable rockets. So before reading that one, I wanted to read about the early days of SpaceX.
This book does a fantastic job of focusing on key people that were hired as the company was being formed. That is something I really love about historical books and memoirs – learning about the people involved. It was clear that Musk had a vision and he set out to find the right people to make that vision a reality. In so doing, he hired people with a similar penchant for finding the right people for specific jobs. Also, people who were willing to put everything into the task of building a rocket. Every. Thing.
Having worked at a startup myself, I know what kind of commitment it takes to make sure the company is successful. It always starts with the people and SpaceX sure knew how to get the best and the brightest.
For most of us, we know SpaceX just from what we hear on the news, or from following space programs and the ISS after the cancellation of the Space Shuttle program. But we generally don’t get to hear about the blood, sweat, and tears put into a venture of this sort. And it is quite inspiring!
SpaceX really perfected the trial-and-error approach to building rockets. Luckily they had a large bankroll funding them. But it’s that drive to get stuff done that Musk instilled in the people that made the company such a success. What government contracts bury the workers in analysis and testing and all that, SpaceX practically just built a rocket and tried it. When it failed, they analyzed the failure to see what needed to be fixed. And around again they went.
I can only imagine how frustrating, tiring, demanding, and ultimately fulfilling it would have been to be on the ground floor of SpaceX. And I don’t want to sound like some fanboy just drooling over something I know a ton about anyway. Nope – this book was really my first exposure to SpaceX other than knowing that they are a private company that builds rockets that NASA contracts with (or contracted with) to resupply the ISS. Now, I can say I know a fair more than that. And I’m intrigued.
I really wanted to give this book 5 stars, but I had to bump it down to 4 stars (maybe 4.5 if I’m being generous). My preference for non-fiction is to go linearly, or chronologically though the subject’s timeline. That would have been a little tough in this book with the focus on the people, but sometimes the time jumps were quite jarring. Like, we’ll read about something big happening and see it through to seeming conclusion, then we jump over to someone else and that thing is still far in the future. I’m sure this book was a beast to lay out and figure out how to best tell the story. And 4 isn’t a bad rating at all! This book is really worth the read for all my fellow space nerds!
