Books by Ashlee Vance
When the Heavens Went On Sale
The Misfits and Geniuses Racing to Put Space Within Reach
Ecco Books 2023
- p002 SpaceX Omelek island, Kwajalein 2005
- p008 Flight 3 August 2008 orbit insertion fail
- p009 Flight 4 in 8 weeks, C-17 transport, air pressure crush and fix
- p010 September 28 to orbit, Falcon 1, 1000 pounds
- p013 2000 Falcon 9, 2 then 4 astronauts to ISS
- p014 1960s to 2020 2500 earth satellites, doubled by 2022, expected 50K to 100K by 2033
- p015 China Russia ... US about 3/4 of 100 satellite launches per year
p025 Robbie Schingler 2017 Feb 15. 88 Planet Labs Doves + 16 other small satellites on Indian PSLV
p029 Shingler prayed at temple
- p031 3 "Canaries" turn on magnetorquers, orient towars sun, turn on solar panels, found 2 errors, uploaded corrections
p035 Office of Strategic Influence Pete Worden Space and Missile Systems Center Los Angeles, team of 50, write interesting papers
p039 After wrecking one rocket and then another and then another, !SpaceX began to implement some of the things Worden and others had suggested.
p043 On Self-Licking Ice Cream Cones "...Cones" phrase used by WW2 army air corps, said Worden's father.
p045 NRO in L.A. SDI Abrahamson
- p049 "In case of war, break this pane of glass for the crazy person"
p051 mentions Creon Levit -> interesting talk, deorbit with night-side retrograde liquid CO2 release -> solid crystals -> collision, then dissipate day side
p053 conflict with Alabama senator Richard Shelby and cronies (pork barrel pig sez Worden) and cronies
p054 Dangerous Sports Club Alan Weston
p055 Lunar Micro Lander $40M ballooned into $280M LADEE
p057 Lunar CRater Observation and Sensing Satellite LCROSS 2009
- "neutron emissions that are consistent with hydrogen-rich deposits covered by dessicated regolith"
https://www.science.org/doi/abs/10.1126/science.281.5382.1496
- p058 Leased 40 acres / 40 years to Google for $148M
p059 Hired Chris Kemp 2006, Astra in 2016
- p061 Kemp lambasted by Ross Perot for halving $180M spend
p062 2008 Singularity University
- p064 foreigners on sacred ground
Planet Labs Will Marshall England, Chris Boshuizen Australia
- p065 Kemp detained for taking NASA laptop to Austrian space conference
- p068 Worden at Ames 2006 to 2015 retirement
- p069 Machiavelli: "The reformer has enemies in all who profit by the old order, and only lukewarm defenders in those who would profit by the new order."
p071 Marshall, Schingler, and Jessy Kate (Cowan-Sharp) Shingler 21677 Rainbow Drive Cupertino pic
- p074 unusual ads on Craigslist, communal meals, large library
p077 two day hike from mansion to Waddell Beach, hitch ride home with Brin and Page
- p080 Will Marshall tapes, audio life log
p083 Telescope unaffordable, built one, astronomer Patrick Moore provided the $1600 lens
- p083 U Leicester, friend Kevin Parkin "He cared. He took the time to rig my room to explode. How can you not find that endearing?"
p085 Marshall Internships at NASA, met Chris Kemp, Vienna Declaration on Space and Human Development
- p085 2000-4, PhD physics at Oxford under Roger Penrose
p087 Lego Satellite Mindstorm NXT kits, Make Magazine cover
p089 Pete Klupar consumer electronics advancing faster than NASA
p089 PhoneSat at Ames, Phonesat.org, Balls Experimental Rocket Launch at Black Rock Desert. Tripoli amateur high power rocketry
p096 April 2013 Dove small satellite by Cosmogia renamed Planet Labs Planet.com
p102 $2M check from Steve Jurvetson early 2011
- p103 First Dove 3U cubesat, cost less than $1M to produce, first working prototypes mid 2012
- p105 first two Doves launched April 2013, raised $13M more, launched 28 in 2014 from ISS cargo rocket, 2015 raised $170M
- p106 early problems with heating, weak radios, lens focus
p107 Mike Safyan negotiates for launches, i.e. Rocket Lab N.Z.
p108 Chester Gillmore manufacturing
p110 3 meter resolution for Doves, 0.5 meter for 2 dozen refrigerator-size Terra Bella SkySats
p112 Decker Eveleth, Chinese inflatable ICBM silo covers, "bouncy houses of death"
p122 Orbital Insight analyzes images: crop yields. Christmas shoppers in parking lots. Oil storage container levels.
p124 Planetlab images show India bombs miss terrorist site. India reneges on future launches.
- p126 Russian crude to Venezuela in violation of US sanctions
- p130 5000 to 50000 satellites in a few years
p137 Nov 2018 Rocket Lab New Zealand US headquarters
- 300 kg to LEO, 200 kg to SSO, 3 failures, 35 successful launches
p147 Peter Beck Invercargill b.1980, father Russell Beck Southland Museum and Art Gallery closed for earthquake risk
- p150 Peter's childhood around tools, unacceptable to not complete a project
p153 worked at E. Hayes & Sons Hardware store
so did Burt Munro "World's Fastest Indian", motorcycle displayed at the store
p155 2.5 hours (204 km) to appliance manufacturer Fisher & Paykel in Dunedin
- p156 tool heaven, finished four-year apprenticeship in less than three years
- p157 started building jet engines, then rockets
- p159 "Number 8 wire" 0.16in diameter NZ version of duct tape, Beck says "aim higher"
p161 home in Kaikorai Valley
- p162 Rocket Propulsion Elements by Sutton ... rocket powered bicycle
p163 5'10" Peter Beck 140 lb ... Dunedin Southern Festival of Speed
- p165 Friday Night Challenge, future wife Kerryn Morris
p166 2002 Kerryn new job at Schlumberger in New Plymouth (north island), Beck follows, works for yacht company with stupid boss
p169 2004 moves to Industrial Research Ltd. in Auckland
- tested carbon fiber panels
- p171 worked two jobs, then rocket projects until 3am
p173 Norton Sales space/technical surplus, sales until 2017, now movie prop rental
- p173 major aerospace firms kick him out, Edwards gatehouse guard nearly arrests him
- p174 visits startups in Mojave, welcoming, building same things, but with M$ backing
- p174 visits KSC tourist stuff, then JPL ... depressing bureaucracy and malaise
- p177 back home in Auckland, Beck conceives Rocket Labs
p179 "Mark Rocket" (Stevens) invests $300K for 50% share
- p181 IRL provides materials, advice, workspace
p182 Shaun O'Donnell avionics
p183 Nikhil Raghu
p189 Ātea-1 launched 30 Nov 2009 to 100 km, 6 m by 15 cm by 60 kg
p195 "DARPA, the batshit crazy arm of the Defense Department" impressed by Beck's advances, Instant Eyes
p196 Operationally Responsive Space Office Viscous Liquid Monopropellant (VLM)
- p198 Mark Rocket abjures DOD money, bails out
p199 new hire Samuel Houghton Instant Eyes project leader, 1 year to prototypes
- p202 November 2012 VLM test launch on Great Mercury Island, visiting SDI director Alan Weston impressed, who impresses Sand Hill Road investors
p205 October 2013 Silicon Valley fundraising, millions of dollars from Khosla Ventures
- p208 official new headquarters Los Angeles, cosmetic move, "I'm as patriotic a Kiwi as you'll ever find, but goddammit, America gets shit done". After signing with Khosla, bought American flag at a supermarket
- p209 carbon fiber frame (not aluminum) like NZ racing sailboats
- p210 battery-powered electric turbopump, 3D printed hardware
- p211 vacuum chamber converted from industrial stainless-steel meat grinder
- p213 interviews hundreds, assigns tasks, picks faster/better candidates
p221 Steven Joyce NZ minister of economic development
- p223 Much NZ/US State Department negotiation, then bilateral treaty in late 2016
- p224 May 2017 raises another $75M, total funding $150M
p225 Naomi Altman flight termination system
- p226 May 25 test, first and second stage nominal, after 4 minutes US safety officers order termination
- problem with US tracking software, rocket would have safely achieved orbit otherwise
- p227-8 January 2018 second successful launch, Planet Labs Dove and meter-sized reflective geodesic sphere, brightest object in night sky for months
- p229 November 2018 raises another $140M, valuation over $1 billion, Beck still owns 25%
p231 added kick stage, second launch pad Wallops Island, Rutherford engines now also manufactured in Huntington Beach CA
p231 Brian Merkel mechanical engineer, now Scythe Robotics robot lawn mowers
- p232 Musk optimizes for speed, Rocket Lab for cost
- p235 US employees paid 2X, stock options only to top 10%
- p238 2018 Nov 11 3rd Launch "It's Business Time", 4th launch a month later
- p242 Beck meets with Musk, who responds with more competitive attention
- p249-266 Chapter: "Let's Make a Lot of Fucking Rockets" Chris Kemp, Adam London
- writing style very different, sorta 'can you figure out what/who/why I am writing about' stream-of-events
- Vance spends MUCH time with these people.
p267: The more time I spent with them, the more I wanted to convey to you, dear reader, how they talked and thought about the space business and how they solved problems. To that end, I'm going to put you next to the engineers both when things go right and when they go horribly wrong, and also simply let you hang out with the engineers as they chat to get a real feel for them. In a number of the following chapters ...
Enough. The hang-out hangover moves to Texas on page 401, Ukrainian Rich Dude Max Polyakov, Firefly Aerospace, and Firefly's once-and-later-no-longer-CEO Tom Markuskic (CTO after July 2022)
Firefly Alpha rocket, two flights from Vandenburg: 2021 Sep 3, flight terminated 2.5 minutes later. 2022 October 1, partial failure, 219 km perigee rather than 300 km circular, 7 small satellites re-entered after a week. Teacher's in Space Serenity , TechEdSat-15 1U Cubesat and Five < 250 gram PocketQubes, 5x5x5 cm, one 8th of a cubesat.
- p421 Branson and Virgin Galactic
- p431 More Max Polyakov, p439 author's trip to Dnipro in Ukraine, ancient Soviet space-stuff
- p449 Firefly's Ukraine factory designed Firefly turbopumps
p469 And here things get ugly
- p470 Vance defends Polyakov: "I didn't understand what the fuss was about. It struck me as odd that Wall Street investors had suddenly developed such sympathy for horny guys on the internet. There was little doubt that Ukrainian technology made its way to some the the United States' major enemies. No one else in Ukraine appeared to have any intention of trying to curb those leaks by investing in the country's aerospace industry. Meanwhile, you've got a guy living in Silicon Valle with his nice, wholesome family who has spent $200 million on a rocket company and is offering to help this situation. To me that looked a hell of a lot better than the alternative."
me: Looks can be deceiving. $200M looks can be very deceiving, especially if the $200M isn't audited.
me: Sincerity is the most important thing. If you can fake that, you've got it made. I want to see verification by a difficult-to-charm third party skeptic. Most importantly, sharing/selling Ukrainian technology to a US startup (especially if the sales are between Polyakov's pockets) does nothing to prevent selling the same secrets to "the United States' major enemies."
The US government did clamp down, and wasn't very open about it. For good reason; revealing the particular ideas being suppressed will highlight them for those unspecified "major enemies".
Elon Musk
Tesla, SpaceX, and the quest for a fantastic future
Ecco Books 2015
BVTN lib not read yet