and the intersectional oppression that black women are facing we don't think our lives are worthy of documentation and not worthy of celebrating >> welcome everyone. >> welcome everybody i am the owner of the bookshop here in usas people are joining from all over the country or even beyond i am thrilled tonight to be here to introducest an icon of our staff we are so thrilled he will be joining us tonight so i'd like to introduce our guest author and his conversational partner.

covering space x and nasa everything beyond our reporter for the houston chronicle we are so thrilled he is here tonight in conversation reporter for the houston chronicle we have a lot to talk about whens it comes to space i will turn this over to eric and andrea for a wonderful conversation welcome and thank you for coming tonight. >> thank you valerie. >> very exciting about your bookf. i love how you started off. right now we have so much happening in south texas. but it feels like the cowboy

days of the falcon one. why did you start the book that way and what are the similarities between what happens now and then quick. >> i want readers to understand why we should carry about what space x put so much effort into launching 15 years ago it is ancient history sort of the speed at which space x moves but the reality is that they had not been successful with the falcon one rat one - - rocket finally launching into thousand eight successfully they never would've gotten into orbit. the other thing that's important to understand is the way space x is today all that dna was established in this

contemptuous. when they started the company and elon musk with hiring people he thought would help him succeed in his quest to build a rocket from scratch. so the fact building a starship is all down to what happened then. it's interesting because there's another parallel they launched the falcon one from the middle of nowhere in the central pacific ocean. if you fly from l.a. to hawaii than the same distance again and find yourself not saying south texas is in the middle of nowhere, but they do have a lot of freedom to operate in south texas like they did in quadrupling they can do what they need to do and move it at the speed elon musk likes to move. >> that they weree such a small company that talks just a handful of people working all

these hours. how can they keep affording to do these design they test and they fail how do they keep doing that quick. >> they have the core business which is the falcon9 rocket that's what they are launching humans on theso third crew mission is coming up this spring. so that rocket cannot afford to fail. they've gone through their teething pains now it is flown successfully about 70 consecutive times. they want to have success with that and with the dragon program. but starship they are not putting people on thatng anytime soon they are not putting cargo or trying to get to orbit there just testing out the flight systems the engines and how to control them the last couple of attempts they

had trouble with the engines right before landing. they want to figure that out. they built a factory in south texas to churn out vehicle after vehicle at a relatively low cost and fly them and then learn from each mistake and move forward. >> when you talk to people does it feel like the early days with allpl of the leeway? when you read the book like everyone is so excited hands-on building not just one example the whole career was designing but they are doing the hands-on narrative. >> it's really interesting. the way elon musk started the company he hired senior vice presidents who had experience in the field and then they hired kids in their twenties still in graduate school, the best of the best those that

were hungry didn't have families to go home to, basically willing to kill themselves in terms of working hard for the company. if you visit boca chica it is the same kind of energy. there's hundreds a set of dozens of engineers. the facility is bigger the rocket is bigger but still just people in their twenties and engineers they are running around and scurrying around. they don't wear 50 hats like the people in the falcon one days they move that no less of a speed that is the drive the elon musk has to pushes teams forward as fast as they can go.o >> i love the level of detail in your book so i can just picture elon must chuckling who was in charge i love the detail i'm a survivor fan i

think outthink and out launch and they were working on the island so long. how many hours of interviews did it take to get the's details? do you have a favorite quick. >> it's hard to pick a favorite. i spent a long time about 20 hours with elon in different settings each employee about it to our interview then i would go back with questions and clarifications just to make sure because someone would tell me a story i would crosscheck with someone else. there are a lot of fun anecdotes one was an incident from 2002 shortly after the company was formed musk and engineers were flying to some companies to find someone to build the tanks that had to

contain the chilled propellants. they stayed at the holiday inn express the next day they were at the breakfast bar i guess it was the first time elon musk had encountered pop tarts. because according to the people at the company they were in the breakfast room he looked at it and stared at it and was fascinated by and then went to toasted positive putting them in vertically heey put in horizontally and had to stick his hands l and to pull them out and burnt himself and said some nice on - - not nice words back in 2002. another story i like is when the president of the company now, hired on as vice president of sales 2002 and was instrumental to the company's success on ath number

of levels. flight number four she was in scotland add a space conference. it was after midnight and she was sitting in the bathroom watching on a laptop. she had gone there to explain to the customers why the rocket had failed on the third failures so this was the moment as she is watching this alone screaming in the bathroom and a scottish hotel. she says now before they launched she writes down scotland to put it in her shoes are she is standing over scotland when they launch rockets for luck about that was a nice touch. >> a big part of the book they had a bunch of 20 -year-olds working really hard. this grind ison why it was so

successful and also why some people left. when you wereee talking to elon musk but how he made them want to work so hard and then be able to get our rocket together but did he see himself driving that hard? >> yes. i think for sure he understands what he does to people. he has an expectation that people come toth work for him will work hard because they believe in whatever he is doing. the rare gift that he gives them isto the ability to make a difference. if you go to space x you can be someone who really does know the first rocket privately developed you command the rocket on about. you can build a spaceship that will go to mars.

it's not like you are going there waiting for a government contract to come through or the program will be canceled because congress changed. he has a track record of getting success done. as one of the engineers who left told me, i gave the best 15 years of my life it was a trade i was willing to make for thepo opportunity. he realizes thatt but he also expects it. i don't want to say he uses people up. but he expects people to give their all. >> i feel that he has that same attitude with regulators. early on talking about going head-to-head with nasa and a couple other regulatory authorities. how did that fearlessness help?

>> even before they launch the first rocket space x had sued northrop grumman, lockheed and boeing the biggest competitors in us airspace industry. they protested nasa and the department of defense. this is someone who is breaking some eggs on the way to space. and that is just how he asked. if he feels he has been wronged, he will fight back. it doesn't always suit him or help him. because he comes across as brash or unreliable or anger customers for some people in the government it makes him uncomfortable to work with. but in the end he typically does deliver and it really was

the protest of the nasa contract in 2004 that ultimately would save the company. this is a contract nasa awarded to begin to have the transfer on - - transportation system to bring cargo to the iss. he thought that wasn'thafa fair. they said don't protest nasa the most important customer potentially. this isn't right. he endedim up being right because that protest basically forced nasa to withdraw the award and will be open competition so the dragon spacecraft and then eventually led to commercial crew. it was one of those contracts they got at the end of 2008 that save the company from bankruptcy and ruin. you take the good and the bad. he will fight if he has right

on his side he will fight you. >> when i read the book i knew it was successful and they kept thinking this is the one this is the one. don't remember the term but then the rocket is crumbling. when you hear the stories were you thinking they got every rough card that they could have. >> they probably felt that way. it is interesting. the book isch ultimately framed around the four launches of the falcon one. the three failures in the fourth was a success. each of the failures are interesting. because they tell you something about the company, the people who work there and elon himself who made mistakes after the first mistake he unfairly blamed a

technician but really the vehicle was exposedo an end tropical environment too long. that was an obvious mistake in retrospect. and then the second vehicle they were aware of the potential problem with second stage but to fix it would require time. they were running up against limits they really needed to fly again and the third one was heartbreaking because they tested the engine and hadn't seen this thrust that came out right at the end of the burn and that's what got them. there was a lot of drama. i wonder if there is a full

book to be told about falcon one and it was just fascinating. the people involved in what they a a went through to get the rocket to orbit is one heck of the story. >> then you weave in the back stories nicely. >> one of the characters in the book is from turkey. so this group of people grew really close because sometimes they were overnight on this tiny island where the rocket was actually being assembled. they would cook steaks and there was a recipe of turkish goulash. one of the things i loved because i found out later when he left the company in 2015, on the last day in the cafeteria space x made the recipe. i thought that was so cool so

i asked if they could put the recipe in the book. you can make it at home. >> when you are going to the process of interviewing and writing this book, what was that like? this is your first book? what was it like you've been a journalist forever but to take those 500 wordsds to a full book of 300 pages? >> it was a lot of fun. because i can say i was a space x when they launched the final flight. people in houston will remember september 2008 not for falcon9 but for hurricane ike. what i remember about that storm is we saw it coming more than two weeks before it made landfall. there were daysg and days i was forecasting for the chronicle and tracking a storm every day. all day.

it made landfall mid-september and had arm devastating storm surge. i was done. i was exhausted. it wore me out. september 2008 is a complete blur. writing the book was a lot of fun because i knew a lot about space x 2010 through present day but almost nothing 2002 through 2008. so it was an exploration to go back and find that out just like a reader. things that were new and interesting to me would be new and interesting to other people. and there were people that were familiar with the story. but i was able to talk to people who never talked like this before. and to get their stories. there's a lot of details that

has never been told before. think it's ever been reported that the intern for space set one - - space x brought a gun to the army base. >> you talk about how eager they were to tell the story in the early years in particular. >> first of all the engineers and technicians who pull this off are incredibly proud of their achievement. it really was against all odds. with that little amount of money and brand-new technology. to be uprooted launching from california then central pacific in the logistical challenges. first of all they were proud and thought it was time to tell the story and then i approached elon early 2019 and is time to tell the story. he sent a green light to people it's okay to talk about.

>> how did you feel about using the oxford? using ap style? >> [laughter] in 2015 they were huge proponents of the oxford. after having not used it for 15 years i had that be in into my head so i was okay with that.en when i got the book and went through extensive process all the numbers like 50 f ift why instead of zero but i learned that. [laughter] >> anything else you want to tell the readers? are everything you hope to get out of it?

>> it's one hell of the story. everything was on the line for elon musk and space x. they have a profound impact at that fourth lunch hadn't taken place and it e was really touching go there was an ache we on - - eight - - eight week. where it was a crisis every day. and they just really pulled together to make something special happen. it was super fun to tell that story spirit these are great stories. we have some questions. i will just ask you, one that i think is hilarious you had behind the scenes access with

the funny thing you saw in the lab are on the desk? >> when the key lieutenants in space x around 2011 elon started to talk about building the falcon heavy rocket which was taking three falcon9's together with 27 engines. kevin miller on his desk in 2012 had taken an early schematic drawings of that and had written on their retire before this happens. [laughter] this is an engineering challenge. but he did not retire. i thought that>> was funny. >> your favorite story but you had to cut it from the book? >> i put in a lot of stuff

everything i wanted to have in their about the falcon one was in there. i did cut some information about the falcon9 the first couple of lunches because i really wanted it to be about the falcon ones c of the last chapter i did gloss over but there was a fair funny story that resonated and tells how musk his eyes are never really in the present but always on the future there is an anecdote that during the first launch of health and one thing it's very aggressive with the launch conductor impressing him 20 minutes before liftoff asking him about ordering aluminum for the falcon five that was never built. we've never launched a rocket before and this was crunch time and here he was.

[laughter] someone the night before the first falcon9 launch in 2010, he and buz had gone out to the launchpad because there was an issue with the storm and the rocket was damaged and needed fixed they got back to the hotel about 4:00 a.m. and elon his mind was on the future. hek wanted to talk about reusing them and renaming the falcon9. a revolutionary booster andos was always looking far beyond the next day five or ten years down the future and that his insight into his psyche. >> the next question on this

call they said they were very proud of you. >> thank you mom and dad. [laughter] i would say when i was a kid in about 1978, i was young. i don't know if it was a project in class, but we wrote to nasa i guess it was johnson space center. was living in michigan i was interested in space and they sent me back an envelope with these pictures taken by the voyager of the solar system. they were beautiful eightht by ten photos with press release information about each planet that voyager discovered. that was-o so cool. that really speaks to the

power of nasa to draw in people. it worked for me i have had a lifelong interest in space ever since. >> what about the culture of space x a lot of people want to know your answer to that. >> the culture of those two companies, the culture was space x is different because it is drawn from elon musk and he sets the tone which is extremely demanding workplace. the phrase i use he wants to make impossible, possible. so he asks great things of his people but then gives them the freedom to do that. he moves really fast. that is in direct contrast

hiring a ceo bob smith was hired a new urgent and from honeywell aerospace jeff pazo's hired him as they move from a hobby shop development company to flying missions in space and with the nasa contracts working with the department of defense. smith made it more like a traditional aerospace company much closer to boeing or sierra nevada and lockheed martin. it's interesting because there are some parallels in 2006 elon musk hired his first ceo from see lunch that was partly owned by a knowing. and he was very much a traditional ceo. that you go from startup to a

bigger company. he lasted nine months because he didn't fit in with the culture. people on the floor were wearing shorts and t-shirts and flip-flops. elon doesn't care. get your job done. him and elon clashed and he was gone pretty quickly. >> why do these inspire us? >> i think the one thing about spaceflight is it can be a very unifying experience. at the outset it was clearly cold war. the soviets and united states kind to show the supremacy of the government.

the since the early eighties we have worked with the soviets and the a russians in space. it has been a unifying adventure. over the last decade as our relationship with russia has grown worse, nasa has gone right along with the iss working very closely with russia for the last decade obviously americans got into space on russian vehicles. i would agree space could be a competition but a way to bring us together and there is hope. if we do a human mission to mars, it would be a global endeavor united states and europe and traditional partners but russia and potentially even china. that would be a nice counterpoint to the divisions here on earth we could all

come together to do something greater to set foot on another world. >> that leads too the next question our used astronauts more likely to go through nasa or space x? >> rate question. space x will play a role in the architecture one way or the other getting humans back from the mood on - - from the mood one - - from the moon. nasa has this expensive vehicle with the space launch system which back when i was covering this eight years ago it was in competition with the falcon heavy in which word launch first. falcon heavy launch 2018 were still waiting for the nasa rocket now it's between sls and space x much larger rocket spaceship now it's a question

ofls starship will reach orbit before sls i think it has a pretty good chance. that rocket is bigger. much cheaper, reusable all the things the sls is not a starship is successful that could be the baseline architecture for human landings on the move on - - on the moon but the biden administration is not even a new nasa administrator in place. wewi will see. >> who has final say in approval? faa? for colonization quick. >> the question is, is elon space x s wants to send people

to mars who gets permission for that? the fact of the matter is it would be the us government. the faa would probably licensed to launch the un probably doesn't have much say. i charge governs the transfer of us secrets and technology to other countries. that would not play a role. licensing a human launch to mars will be a tricky endeavor. not geopolitical reasons although that could be a factor but more along the lines is there life on mars we don't know about? small microbes. not martians. or wasfe there past life? and would sending humans there interfere with whatever martian ecosystem there is? that is called planetary

protection. elon musk really doesn't care. if life is underground he doesn't think humans on the surface would disturb it and even if they did they are just microbes and humans need to go out into the cosmos and what's the problem. but their scientist and people and environmental on - s - environmentalist to would raise concerns about that. ultimately of space x does go to mars it would be hand in hand with nasa to address some of those issues a planetary protection. >> we have a question from dwight. god for bid but how would space x respond to a disaster if there was loss of life?

how does musk tension with the faa play out quick. >> it's not the issue with faa and nasa and congress they would be deep in the knickers of space x if that happened. that would be a terrible tragedy. it is possible. there are no guarantees with human spaceflight whatsoever. there are some pretty good safety cautions with the falcon9 rocket which has an excellent record. the newest version has never failed after 70 attempts. if it does fail, unlike the spatial has a launch escape. if something went wrong with the space shuttle on a sense there was no way for the crew to get back to earth. with dragon there is a launch escape system is something is wrong with the rocket within a

fraction of a second powerful thrusters can push it away. the last of crew is about one and 240 missions. it is not zero but the space shuttle is in 135. it's lower than t the space shuttlert that would be extremely serious and raise questions about whether all the promises of commercial space are coming true. there's a lot of effort being taken to protect against that for many reasons. >> i know we can get to all of these questions what lessons if any should the larger aerospace industry take firm space x. >> we had talk last december

about this and what they are doing of how fast they are moving. it is unprecedented to be building a rocketship every w two weeks which is what they are doing down there launching frequently in this test program. i said what you think the rest of the industry thinks about this? she said were not trying to show anybody up. we think the space community deserves better yout should wait ten or 15 years it should happen faster so they are leading by example and they have had an incredible function not only in the us

that rocket groups in europe and china and japan who are scrambling to catch up with cost and usability as well. >> what can they teach the larger aerospace industry becauseon this question seems to encompass a larger space. >> that usability has been key that brought down cost and more and more about debris in spacee it is something that been focused on a lot of different fields so that usability is one aspect pushing for the agenda pretty

broadly. there have been multiple announcements of humansi space flight missions that don't involve nasa but space x rocket or the starship so it's really not affordable but i also think they are pushing the boundary to be more people into the space doing up in the so use may be eight missions over people so i also think space x will be a while to bring down the cost but has usability at a broader

level. >> that's a great point for a lot of these activities it seems like tourist in orbit and space hotels in the private space stations none of those could happen without the lower cost as a reliable way to get people up there. whatever they are charging to commercial customers isat not cheap but with the space shuttle the opportunity was not there with so use you can get one tourist up at a time dragon you can t fly for people autonomously and they can stay there threeme or four months similar to a space station this opens up opportunities that did not exist and frankly i have been surprised by already the numberci of commercial missions that have been announced so it suggest to me they have more on the way and again that is all down

to having the lower-cost system put in place. >> one more question i don't think we have asked this without space x we have other companies active in the pipeline? because space x launched in the early 2000's. >> what space x has done for the industry as they have shown investors that there is money to be made in space so it makes it a lot easier if you are a startup company to say we are the next space x

because of xyz have a similar growth plan this is the vision they revolutionize access to space we will revolutionize whatever. if you look since 2010 after the first falcon one success or falcon9 the amount of funding going into private equity has gone up a lot. space x has shown with launch companies you can be successful with aab commercial vehicle. so then dozens of other companies are trying to do the same thing. many will fail that some will succeed on the backs of space x. >> from when the first man

landed on the moon you brought it to life for us and and everybody would appreciate this. some of these things were happening when other major things were happening. and then to bring it back and tell us the history and then to form a base how to go forward in the reading. we appreciate all the reporting that you do and reporting on the space industry. that means so much to us here in the greater houston area. eric will be back. this has been such a thrilled to meet both of you and to talk with bothh of you we can't

live without it at the shop and i'm just t so thrilled both of you are here tonight and thank you for taking your time. hopefully you can contact them on social mediati and ask questions. you are a rockstar. thank you so much. we appreciate it from blue willow bookshop in houston texas.

>> it was a civil war majority black. three others ran for percentage points. if the black people had not migrated. i understand why they did. but if they had not, it is possible that black people could control up to 14 senate seats.

and those votes that california and new york state combined. it's possible they would have real power on the state level. so when i am saying to black america particularly young black americans i saw you in the streets and protesting if you want a shot at changing those systems the quickest most powerful way to do that is through state power. i am asking such consider a reverse migration that people are doing it without political considerations. do that with political intentionality. >> . >> so what is similar back to

what was proposed back then and how is your proposal different? >> that group of radicals met and that is the republic of new africa. what they were saying the list of demands was broader to establish a separate republican the southern states and to demand reparations to finance that republic my proposal is different i don't

want a separate republic i want to be stronger within this republic. >> i have to ask part of my generation passage of the civil rights legislation. to put us in charge of the cities the courts, healthcare systems and we will be better for our people. we have 50 years of black political will in the city. >> so in the implicit ways

that cities exist at the leisure of the state that is why you have preemption by state there's nothing the city can do that they cannot come in and preempt. we see that in the pandemic and the government says you cannot do that. there's nothing they can do. it is great to have been a civil control the majority black cities 90 percent are in the south it's a good feeling to live in the environment. however i understand this is the united states of america not the federation of cities of america. so if you want real power then you have to be in charge of states and have power on the

state level. with those cities that have struggled because those are majority black cities, that ignores the old idea of massive white flight with this investment. and had incredible infrastructure that the city cannot do any more than the state would allow them to do. and they don't control those states. it is almost a shame to blame the cities and then to not do better when in fact with that pattern and behavior of people

moving to those cities her in the first place. the first plac. . . . .