Rocket Dreams: Musk, Bezos, and the Inside Story of the New, Trillion-Dollar Space Race

ISBN: 0593594118

Author: Davenport, Christian

Condition: New

Thrilling . . . an important tale of how American ingenuity and entrepreneurial spirit is creating a new type of space age.-Walter Isaacson, New York Times bestselling author of Elon MuskMusk vs. Bezos. China vs. the United States. The government vs. the private sector.Welcome to the rivalries and alliances defining the New Space Age. At stake? Trillions of dollars, national prestige, and a place in the history books.A fine piece of reporting; historians will be able to use this first draft of rocket history to craft deeper analyses of our first real steps as a space-faring society.-The New York TimesMoon landings and space walks once captivated the publics attention. But, in recent decades, the U.S. space enterprise has felt moribund. Now, thats finally about to change.A fleet of powerful new rockets is poised to take humans into the cosmos more than ever before. A lunar land rush has sparked a geopolitical competition among nations. And the worlds two richest men have engaged in escalating brinkmanship, as NASA and the U.S. government embraces Silicon Valley innovation to jump-start the nations ambitions.Space has entered a golden age, and this is just the beginning. In this gripping work, award-winning Washington Post writer Christian Davenport chronicles the mad scramble to shape humanitys off-planet future. He takes readers behind the scenes at NASA and the Pentagon as Chinas aggressive moon mining plans raise alarms, onto the sprawling Cape Canaveral factory where Blue Origin is working toward Amazon-style lunar deliveries, and onto SpaceX launch pads as Musks engineers log 100-hour weeks-leaving veteran astronauts marveling that theyre now operating flying iPhones.What will happen as human ambition outpaces governmental regulation? Which country will win the race back to the moon? Was Donald Trumps much-derided creation of the Space Force a surprising act of foresight, and will the U.S. finally make a real push to the moon and eventually toward Mars?Masterfully paced, rigorously reported, and vividly told, Rocket Dreams offers a riveting, fly-on-the-wall account of the grit-fueled global battle to push humankind further into the cosmos-revealing that the science fiction dreams of the last century may soon become our reality.