Space Barons

Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, and the Quest to Colonize the Cosmos

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Quotes

• Bezos grandfather was the head of ARPA (later renamed DARPA) when it was first formed and it’s task was to put satellites in space in response to sputnik.
• The conquest of space is worth the risk of life - Gus Grissom {one of the astronauts that died during an Apollo I preflight test}
• The biggest challenge, I think, that we had in the execution of this was convincing NASA, every step of the way, that we’re going to do business very differently, we’re going to get it right” - Shotwell

🚀 Summary

Jeff Bezos has a rich history with space and has been extremely interested in it his entire life likely since his grandfather ran the very first space program before NASA was even founded. The rich commercial space program we have today is almost entirely thanks to Elon Musk since no one else has been bold enough to take on the government to fight for fair and open contracts. Shotwell deserved her own chapter, she is definitely a large part of the success for SpaceX.