Rocket Billionaires

Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, and the New Space Race

By: Tim Fernholz

Narrated by: Erin Moon

Length: 10 hrs and 40 mins

Publisher's summary

The inside story of the new race to conquer space, as Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos spend billions of their own money to explore the final frontier

For the larger-than-life personalities now staking their fortunes on the development of rocket ships, the new race to explore space could be a dead end, a lucrative opportunity - or the key to humanity's salvation. Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos take center stage in this fast-paced narrative as they attempt to disrupt the space economy, feed their own egos, and maybe even save the world. We also meet a supporting cast of equally fascinating entrepreneurs, from the irrepressible British mogul Richard Branson to satellite Internet visionary Greg Wyler. All are united in the profound conviction that commercial space transportation will transform our world for the better.

Tim Fernholz's fly-on-the-wall reporting captures an industry in the midst of disruption, as NASA seeks to preserve its ambitious space exploration program, traditional aerospace firms like Boeing and Lockheed Martin scramble to adapt to new competitors, lobbyists tussle over public funds, and lawmakers try to prevent this new space race from sparking global conflict. With privileged access to top executives at SpaceX, including Musk himself, as well as at Blue Origin, NASA, Boeing, Lockheed Martin, Orbital ATK, and Virgin Galactic, Fernholz spins this high-stakes marathon into a riveting tale of rivalry and survival.

Cover design by Brian Moore.

©2018 Tim Fernholz (P)2018 Audible, Inc.

An Excellent Read

US government should be busting up US defense contractors and giving the pieces to Elon.

Actually had some top-level engineering details..

.. seems to be rare amongst these type of books. This made up for the fact that the reader couldn't pronounce words like Lagos, Soyuz, or NASA.

very entertaining

this was an interesting account of events, tracking multiple events over last 30 years or so. Funny error at 26:35 into chapter 2 ... “faster than the sound of speed” 😂

Excellent summary of the new space era

I always wanted to hear the origin story of Spacex and Blue Origin. I throughly enjoyed reading this book. I have a renewed respect for all the men and women involved in this new industry.

informative and exciting

great story telling. a little slow during the politics explanation, but necessary to understand the background.

The race to the Moon and Mars is happening now!

This book is very captivating and accurately details how human beings will become a spacefaring species with a little help from entrepreneurs like Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos.

Interesting book; hard to listen to

There is a lot of interesting content in this book, although I was already familiar with most of the incidents described it helped straighten out some of the timeline and players for me, particularly in regards to ULA, Orbital and the Oneweb/Starlink projects. Unfortunately the narration in the audiobook has problems. I think generally Erin Moon did a good job, but her director wasn't paying attention. She swaps words in a few places and makes a lot of bizarre mispronunciations that are distracting. Generally that's forgivable but she pronounces NASA "NasAAH", which I've never heard anyone do, and NASA is in every other paragraph. It's like in the "Good to Great" audio book where NCAA is read as "N-C-Two-A". What planet are these narrators from?

Also I was annoyed that some editor somewhere must have though the word "nerd" appeared in the book too much, so changed every instance to either "geek" or "dork". The latter is particularly galling. I don't think engineers have gotten around to enjoying being labeled dorks yet.

The editor had plenty of time to make that mistake, since the book leaves off with the first reuse of the Falcon 9 despite being published after the launch of Falcon Heavy.

Interesting book, not the best reader choice

The reader says "Nassau" instead of NASA and if it was said once or twice it would not be a problem, but since the book is about the US space program, she says Nassau about 300 times and it becomes really painful.

Great overall, nice narative, poor performance

Who would you have cast as narrator instead of Erin Moon?

The narrator consistently pronounced "NASA" like "Nassau". Also once talked about a rocket breaking up when it reached the "sound of speed".

Pronounced NASA wrong the whole book...

it hurt every single time. it's a book about space buisness how come no one noticed this. embarrassing.