How SpaceX Cut Launch Costs 97%: Space to Grow - Book Club, Ep. 1

Описание: SpaceX launches over 130 rockets a year. NASA managed about 5. SpaceX delivers cargo to orbit for $2,800 per kilo. The shuttles cost $90,000.

In fifteen years, one company did what a government agency couldn't do in sixty.

We're reading Space to Grow: Unlocking the Final Economic Frontier by Brendan Rosseau and Matthew C. Weinzierl. This is the book that explains how it happened.

Chapters one through three cover the inflection point. The Apollo program ended. America lost interest. NASA built expensive shuttles that failed. Columbia exploded in 2003. George W. Bush convened the Aldridge Commission. The government opened the door to private companies through COTS contracts.

Meanwhile, Elon Musk went to Russia to buy rockets.

But those pesky Russians raised the price mid-negotiation, so Elon flew home, started SpaceX and got to work building Falcon 1.

They made 3 rockets. They all exploded on a remote atoll in the Pacific and the coiffeurs were dry. Peter Thiel called with $20 million. They built a fourth rocket from spare parts. Someone climbed inside during transport to hammer out dents. It launched successfully.

Six months later, NASA gave them a billion-dollar contract.

Blue Origin took a different path. Jeff Bezos watched the Apollo landing at five years old. He hired Rob Meyerson, a former NASA engineer. They worked quietly at a facility near Seattle and on a ranch in West Texas. Blue Origin chose the tortoise approach while SpaceX played the hare.

The book identifies four principles behind SpaceX's success: iteration, vertical integration, economies of scale and reusability, and culture. We break down all of them.


🚀 Get the book: Space to Grow by Brendan Rosseau and Matthew C. Weinzierl

Stay curious! And Keep Thinking On Paper.

Cheers,

Mark and Jeremy

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TIMESTAMPS
00:00 Trailer
01:02 Space To Grow
01:55 Incorporate Space Into Your Thinking
03:28 The Apollo Program Ends
05:43 The NASA Budget & Shuttle Launches
07:51 Bush & The Aldridge Commission
08:36 COTS (Commercial Orbital Transportation Services)
10:27 Blue Origin, Bezos & O'Neill
14:40 A Quick History Of SpaceX
18:23 Falcon Blows Up
20:24 Elon Sues The Airforce
22:04 SpaceX Launch Costs
23:45 The Honda Civic Of Space Rockets

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