PublicAffairs The Space Barons: Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, and the Quest to Colonize the Cosmos

If anything is going to define the 21st century, it's probably the rise of the commercial human space sector. We're still in the early stages, and none of the titular Space Barons have done it yet, but commercial-fueled manned space operations are coming, and you have a few colorful personalities to thank for that. This book is a quick summary of the short history of the rise of the space. Focusing less on the personalities (unlike, say, Ashlee Vance's Musk bio) and more on the enterprises, it's a good and fast enough read. A bigger and more detailed book would have earned 5 stars, I think. I needed it to remember that Paul Allen is still interested in space. Even if no one hears much about him anymore.

Brilliant book telling the true story which is far from over and indeed is still at the beginning of the new rush to colonise the stars. It tells of the competition between the various players and how they are achieving their goals in rather different ways and through different routes. SpaceX getting funding through sales of satellite launches and NASA contracts while Blue Origin gets funding at the present time through sales of Amazon Stock. At the end of the day though they all complement each other. Musk has his sights on Mars while Bezos is following the route laid out by the teachings of the Princeton physicist Gerard O' Neill in his book the High Frontier. Is there room for both and the other players such as Sir Richard Branson and his Virgin Empire. Space is a big place, I'd say there is. Musk can do the exploring while Bezos can follow up with the millions of settlers who will certainly follow just like the settlers who ventured first across the atlantic from Europe then in Wagon trains heading west to California. Nobody knew then what riches were to be had and what was to happen in the future, all that they were going to find a new life. The same is going to happen now with the settlement of the Sky! People don't actually realise this is going to happen, but the factories are being built and the designs finalised for the first of the vehicles to begin this next step in the evolution of humanity into the cosmos.

As the U.S. government goes on a wild goose chase for its next goal in space, NASA going around in circles as it complies, the private space industry is now moving in, and not a moment too soon. Since its last voyage to the Moon (Apollo 17) back in 1972, the U.S. and NASA has retreated to Earth orbit, with Skylab, Apollo-Soyuz, and the space shuttle. The shuttle was a noble experiment meant to cut costs and fly to space constantly, but alas, it turned out to be the most expensive and required constant maintenance after each flight. It turned out that in the end, a flight would cost $1.5 billion, and in its run, two ships were destroyed in flight, killing 14 astronauts. Enter the private space industries, that builds rockets from scratch, launches them at one tenth the cost, so far, and reuses the first stage. Virgin Galactic, being in the tourist business, launches their ships from an airplane at 35,000 feet all the way up to the beginning of suborbital space. This book focuses on three industrialists: Elon Musk, of SpaceX (and Tesla), Jeff Bezos of Blue Origin, and Richard Branson of Virgin Galactic. Other companies are mentioned, that started but were unsuccessful, but these three are the top space barons, for now. As stated, Richard Branson is focusing on space tourism with Virgin Galactic, but the two competitors are Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos, and they are at it like dogs. SpaceX has mostly dominated the headlines, with its Dragon capsule supplying the International Space Station (ISS) and the first stage of the Falcon 9 returning to Earth to be reused, rather than be dumped into the ocean. They've also made the news with the Falcon Heavy, the new Heavy Lift Launch Vehicle, with the hope of eventually reaching Mars. Blue Origin is the quieter company, but they are competing closely with Space X on its own space taxi along with their reusable first stage rockets. These alone make Musk and Bezos fiercely compete and make the race interesting. There are even anecdotes on them being on stage with other executives, but these two avoiding each other like the plague. It's that fierce. Fortunately, it's good for the rest of humanity because the space launch business is finally being made available to the general public, with ever decreasing launch costs, and this alone will finally get the U.S. and all of humanity back into space, the next frontier, this time without an end. As for NASA, my recommendation for them is to completely get out of the launch business and save taxpayer money by leasing rockets from private companies at a fraction of the cost. After a 40 year delay, The Space Barons will help take humanity to the stars. Read the book. It's exciting and filled with tidbits of little known facts, some even amusing, having little to do with space itself (one even involving a gambling casino in Las Vegas), but you see the goings on in the space business.

I'm a Newspace fanboy and this book summarizes the dawn of the new era in space industry very well. It has mainly covered the story of Space X, Virgin Galactic and Blue Origin. If such topic interests you, then you are going to enjoy reading this book as it written by a journalist who works with The Washington Post. 5 out of 5 stars. I bought paperback, kindle edition as well as audiobook of it. If you have kindle, then I would suggest you to just buy the Kindle edition as the fonts in the paperback edition are quite small. All you cosmically curious people can find me on insta- champreads

After the Space x launch? A winner book for the kids on your grad list