Rainer Zitelmann
Yesterday marked the sixth test launch of SpaceX’s “Starship” shuttle, following a fifth successful test in October. If you want to know how this was possible, you should read this book. There are plenty of books about the aerospace company SpaceX, and I have read most of them. However, the recent book by astronomer and space expert Eric Berger, Reentry: SpaceX, Elon Musk and the Reusable Rockets that Launched a Second Space Age, stands out as the best. In particular, it portrays the checkered relationship between NASA and SpaceX.
Initially, the CEO, Elon Musk, faced significant opposition from both political figures and NASA officials. Charles Bolden, who would serve as NASA administrator during President Obama’s tenure in the White House, was a skeptic of Musk and SpaceX. The powerful U.S. senator who held NASA’s purse strings, Richard Shelby (R-AL), declared that efforts to rely on private companies like SpaceX represented a “death march” for NASA.
These were strong words, especially after NASA’s shuttle program had fallen far short of every one of its stated objectives, with each shuttle launch costing approximately $1.5 billion including “development costs, maintenance, renewal, and other expenses.”
They were also strong words when you consider that launch costs more or less stagnated between 1970 and 2010 and that several attempts by NASA to develop reusable rockets (the X-33 and X-34) were abandoned.
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