Liftoff

Berger, a space journalist at Ars Technica, wrote the history of SpaceX's first six years, from the 2002 founding to the fourth Falcon 1 launch in September 2008, based on interviews with most of the early employees and with Elon Musk.

The narrative is about a company that nearly failed four times. Berger documents the decision to build engines, avionics and structures in-house rather than buying from established aerospace suppliers, which was driven by cost and which required hiring engineers willing to work in ways the industry did not. He covers the choice of Kwajalein Atoll in the Marshall Islands as a launch site after Vandenberg proved unavailable, and the conditions that followed: a small team living on a remote island, working in salt air that corroded hardware, with no local supply chain and a resupply cycle measured in weeks.

The three failures are covered in technical detail. The first launch failed from a corroded aluminium nut that allowed a fuel leak and fire. The second failed from propellant slosh that caused control loss during second-stage flight. The third failed because residual thrust in the newly changed first-stage engine caused the stages to recontact after separation. The fourth succeeded, weeks before the company would have run out of money, and was followed by the NASA Commercial Resupply Services contract that made the company viable.

Berger's argument is that the achievement came from iteration speed and from a willingness to fly hardware that was not fully verified, accepting failures as information, which is the opposite of established aerospace practice.

The book relies on participant interviews and on Musk's cooperation, and it is admiring. It says little about working conditions, turnover or the human cost of the schedule beyond what participants volunteered. It ends in 2008 and covers none of the Falcon 9, reuse or Starlink history.