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

by Christian Davenport

By the end of 2003, Musk decided that if NASA wouldn’t come to him, he would go to it. The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) was preparing to celebrate the hundredth anniversary of the Wright Brothers’ first powered flight with a party at the National Air and Space Museum, and Musk decided he’d show up—and bring his new rocket. For the event, SpaceX loaded the seven-story rocket onto the back of a custom trailer and hauled it cross-country to Washington, DC. With a police escort, it paraded down Independence Avenue, along the National Mall, hallowed ground that had been witness to myriad spectacles, marches, protests. But it had never seen anything quite like this. As Musk, then thirty-two years old, parked his rocket outside the headquarters of the FAA, tourists who were headed to the National Air and Space Museum stopped to gawk at the streetside exhibit, even in the freezing temperatures. A shiny, white missile that stretched seven stories long, squatting in the real estate usually reserved for hot dog vendors. A cabbie stopped, agog, as the trailer took up an entire lane of traffic—at rush hour. The spectacle was pure Silicon Valley swagger, like an Apple product unveiling, but before Steve Jobs had perfected the art of hyping a new gadget to the masses. This was Musk’s opportunity to show off what his little startup had accomplished—to NASA; to the congressional staffers clamoring for free drinks; to the press, eager for a glimpse—even if it had yet to fly.