SpaceX From The Ground Up: SpaceX have taken science fiction and turned it into science fact. This is their story past, present - and future. SpaceX's ... bright vision of the future will move you.
SpaceX promise to revolutionise space exploration and provide everyone the means to travel to new worlds. This is their story, all they have accomplished so far as they inexorably open the high frontier. How they survived perilous straights to emerge as the most popular, innovative and influential launch company in the world. SpaceX are destined to colonise Mars and developing the technology to make this possible right now. Their Mars Colonial Transporter possesses some truly sublime solutions to the challenges of conquering Mars. They are literally moving Heaven and Earth to help us evolve into a space faring civilisation. If you crave space exploration or hunger for the future - the SpaceX story will be your delight. Their courage will inspire you. ________________________________________ Exhaustively researched yet simple to read account of SpaceX's past, present and future. It's written very much like a story and managed to answer a surprising number of my questions - including some I hadn't even thought of! Worth reading just for all the Mars Colonial Transporter info. Nicely balances present day facts with projections of SpaceX progress on their mission to colonise Mars. Well written with decent graphics, definitely recommend. - UK Review
I'm not sure if the book's title misled me or if I just projected my own assumptions about the contents of the book onto my expectations. Basically, I thought this would be a detailed history of SpaceX from inception to present, plus maybe some speculative information about their Mars plans. However, this book focuses MOSTLY on the Mars plans and SpaceX's history is recounted quite briefly in the first part of the book.
It's unfortunate because the stuff about SpaceX's Mars plans is based on unconfirmed leaks and speculations, which is still interesting but personally I was hoping for hard facts. The later part of the book delves into an even higher degree of speculation by trying to predict what the Mars society is going to look like longer-term and what different stages it will have to go through. Again, somewhat interesting but very speculative and not really based on anything SpaceX publically stated - it's just one way the author thinks the colonization efforts could potentially go.
I don't want to sound overly negative, though. The book is well written, and if you're not very familiar with SpaceX in general, the first third of the book has some good information about their history and accomplishments in an easily understandable form. And if you're also interested in speculation about how to colonize Mars (which might be close to what SpaceX is actually planning, but also it might not), then you'll find interesting stuff here, too. But if you're a SpaceX fanboy like me who follows them closely, you're likely not going to find anything new here as far as facts go. In that case you better be interested in the speculative information about MCT and the more general colonization stuff. Otherwise you'll probably be disappointed.
The book isn't bad, it's just that the title to me suggests different content than what it's actually focusing on.
Some people do not believe I’m Terraforming Mars but it’s worth a try. This reading was very easy to understand and kept my interest thought out the book.
I was going to give it 5 stars until you started speculating about future tech and culture on Mars 100+ years from now. This is purely speculative, while SpaceX is more focused on giving humanity the means of Mars colonization - "I can only show you the door. You're the one that has to walk through it.". The rest is for the human kind to figure out, not just SpaceX.
One of the things I disagree with is how you seem to imply that Terraforming is 100% the way to go. There is still a huge scientific, philosophical and ethical debate going on whether we should Terraform another stellar body. What if we actually discover microbial life on Mars ? Should we still wipe out the first and only alien life we encounter, on it's own planet, for the sake of Terraforming ? Not a very good track record for our species, considering our intellectual and moral self esteem.
Apart from that, this book is a well written, easy to read and not too technical explanation of the purpose behind SpaceX, its history and future technology. Although, I'm a SpaceX fan and follower myself, I've learned a few new things from the book.
Actually, I'll give you 5 stars, because this book is new and needs more love.
Interesting introduction to how SpaceX is preparing to colonise Mars and open up space travel for everyone. It describes why the company's so different, including their current spaceploits and quite a bit of new information about their BFR spacecraft (carries a 100 people no less!). Nice easy read with plenty of references if you want to dig into the subject.
Recommend to anyone to who is interested in space - or needs uplifting!
I lot of speculation and conjecture, and not really a lot of new information for somebody that follows SpaceX and space in general closely. For the uninitiated however this book is a find. I give the book 4 stars for being an easy read and for adding a lot of sources, besides I like speculation and conjecture