Space Barons

    After the excitement of the space race, public interest (at the risk of generalizing) waned. Actually, this started even during the Moon landings, as budget cuts sacrificed Apollo 19 and Apollo 20. Although the space shuttle and ISS drummed up some excitement, retrospectively, it feels nowhere near the excitement originally garnered by NASA. And after STS-135, the final shuttle mission, the United States lost human launch capabilities in 2011. 

    However, in recent years, there is a very exciting resurgence in interest in space. Private corporations have done the seemly impossible - reignite a national interest in space. It's not that there hadn't been public-sector effort to do so: even George H. W. Bush talked about the "Space Exploration Initiative" in the early 90's, pushing ideas of returning to the Moon and going onward to Mars. Every subsequent president outlined his own ideas, usually talking about the Moon and Mars. But progress was ineffectual - when presidents axe the programs that their predecessors started, nothing gets completed. Luckily, a little survived, with the Orion capsule from the Constellation program surviving Obama (due to political infighting in Congress, but that's a different story), through Trump's adjustments to 44's plans, and on through Biden's presidency. Recently, it launched on the SLS as a part of Artemis I, with the hopes that future missions will help carry mankind back to our satellite.

    But through this tumult, a number of private space-faring corporations rose to public attention. None more-so than SpaceX, which captivates viewers everywhere with the vertical landings of their orbital-class boosters. Others, like Blue Origin and Virgin Galactic, join the former in bringing tourists into space. Dozens of smaller launch providers have been springing up, offering new innovative technologies. 

    In The Space Barons: Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, and the Quest to Colonize the Cosmos, author Christian Davenport tries to tell the tale of how these billionaires help reinvigorate the industry. But I'm left with mixed feelings about this book. In general, it is fairly well written and thorough, touching on the secrecy with which Bezos purchased land in Texas to begin testing engines, or the desperation in SpaceX as they almost went belly-up initially, or even how Branson purchased the technology for Virgin Galactic from Scaled Composites, which started the development of the space plane.

    At the same time, there's a feeling that the author really prefers Musk over Bezos. It's not as pronounced in discussing Branson, but Bezos seems like he's under additional scrutiny. Especially when contrasted with the fairly blatant adoration that Davenport splashes on the South African billionaire, this seems a bit disingenuous. Sure, Blue might not have delivered the same showy results as SpaceX, but they did after all perform the first vertical landing, even if it isn't from an orbital class booster. And yes, I understand how much more deltaV is needed, but that still is a magnificent achievement. Furthermore, given the level of secrecy at Blue, it's tough to judge what they really can do. For instance: they can just randomly announce things like the technology to make solar panels from lunar regolith [see: Ars Technica]. Somehow, even the critiques of Musk sound fawning, like this quote from Page 151, talking about the corporate culture of SpaceX:

It wasn’t a place for everyone. The whole enterprise of building rockets seemed a little crazy. The hours were ridiculously long; the work, challenging. It was great for young, energetic, and brilliant workaholics, but not so great for those seeking a “work-life balance.” Elon Musk was demanding and known to yell at employees on the middle of the factory floor. A former executive at Lockheed who got to know Musk and the culture at SpaceX couldn’t believe how relentless and demanding they were. “If I did that, at a public company, the HR person and the lawyers would be in my office within ten minutes to ship me off to eighteen months of sensitivity training,” he said.

    Finally, I also take issue with his treatment of NASA. Much has gone wrong with the organization, no doubt about it. But that isn't necessarily the fault of the organization - it's largely subject to the whims of politicians, as I discussed earlier. He only acknowledges this backhandedly:

Decades later, as NASA’s average age grew to nearly fifty by the height of the shuttle era, its aversion to risk grew. After the Challenger disaster killed all seven on board; then Columbia, another seven, the investigations and accusations piled up and the youthful invincibility was gone. (p. 121)

    NASA has done much and more in the decades since the space race. Vast swaths of our everyday technologies owe their existence to the science organization. By dismissing their contributions, Davenport hurts his own book.

    Overall: good outline, very biased. I'll leave you on this gem of a quote, talking about Obama's visit to Kennedy Space Center and specifically to a launch pad taken over by SpaceX. Hopefully the fawning tone is as entertaining to you as it was to me:

Obama didn’t say a word publicly. He took no questions at the pad. And during the speech, he didn’t so much as utter the name “SpaceX.” But here he was, his jacket slung casually over his shoulder, walking in lockstep with Musk, like two pals out for a stroll. The images were powerful, their message evident: this was the future. It was as if the president had broken out a bottle of champagne and christened the rocket, blessed its mission, and in the process, tapped the kneeling Musk on each shoulder with his sword, knighting him as a member of the realm. (pp. 163-164)