Liftoff: Elon Musk and the Desperate Early Days That Launched SpaceX

by Eric Berger

They had to work late because there was so much to do. As there were always problems to be dealt with, the engineers and technicians pushed themselves to exhaustion long after sunset.

The U.S. Department of Justice investigated Boeing, asking how it acquired tens of thousands of pages of trade secrets belonging to Lockheed Martin. There were lawsuits. And then, concerned it might lose access to the Delta line of rockets, including the Delta IV Heavy, the U.S. Air Force stepped in. To end the legal hostilities the Department of Defense brokered a deal in which Lockheed and Boeing would merge their rocket building ventures into one company.

One way SpaceX differentiated itself, Shotwell said, is by pushing for fixed-price contracts, which incentivize a firm to get its work done. It also encourages the customer to keep the baseline request the same, and not make costly change orders to the design of a rocket or spacecraft.

Musk endured a difficult childhood. But he credits his father with teaching him the fundamentals of engineering. Musk did not realize it at the time, but as he built circuit boards and model airplanes as a kid, he was learning important lifelong lessons.

When a U.S. president travels abroad, a C-17 follows behind Air Force One carrying the presidential limousine and Marine One helicopter. With a carrying capacity of 170,000 pounds, the aircraft could easily accommodate the Falcon 1 rocket’s first stage.

Even as SpaceX achieved success, both of Musk’s major companies spiraled toward bankruptcy. That fall he had about $30 million cash left. Friends urged Musk to save SpaceX or Tesla, warning that he could not support both.

In the mid-2010s, SpaceX began to deliver on the promise of low-cost, rapid launch. At about $60 million for a basic Falcon 9 launch, the company undercut every other major orbital rocket on the market. Commercial satellite operators who had long looked to Europe, Russia, or China to get their large birds into space suddenly started flocking back to the United States for the first time in decades. SpaceX grabbed about two-thirds of the world’s commercial satellite launch business by the end of the decade.