When the Heavens went on Sale

In more symbolic terms, the SpaceX engineers shattered the natural order of things. While not at all clear back in 2008, that first launch into orbit would emerge as an inciting incident. Like Roger Bannister besting the four-minute mile, SpaceX made people recalibrate their sense of limitation when it came to getting to space. The imaginations and passions of engineers and dreamers all around the world expanded. A turning point had occurred, and a space frenzy had been ignited.

Musk and then Beck unlocked the idea that any individual who is clever enough and relentless enough can build a rocket just about anywhere.

Over the past decade, however, tens of billions of dollars have poured into the private space industry. The obvious transition has been from that of governments to billionaires and then to venture capitalists.

People don't realize how dependent we are on space infrastructure. If we turn off GPS, there's no Uber anymore. There's no Tinder anymore. Humans have become incredibly reliant on space, but it's all hidden. You don't see it, but it's absolutely critical to the way we function.

I think the quickest way to learn is to have a desire to make something and then the ability and facility to make it.

There are two ways you can learn. You can go to a university and be taught about a shaft breaking, or you can go to industry and have a shaft break. At university, the major consequence is a poor grade. The consequences in the factory are the production lines stopping, so they’re much bigger.

The big joke is that the really difficult “rocket science” part of the problem, the physics, was figured out ages ago. The stuff holding the rocket back now is grunt work. What you need at this point are relentless, problem-solving mechanics, not PhDs.

Beck felt more and more convinced that the aerospace industry had become complacent and fearful as the decades had passed. A small team with limited resources could accomplish an awful lot if it just thought about problems in inventive ways.

He mostly took comfort in the fact that Beck still had all his fingers and toes after fifteen years or so of blowing things up.