Liftoff

Part documentary, part geeky space thriller.

I enjoyed reading tales of pouring your life into a project and having it ultimately work out due to acts of bravery, diligence, and heroism. Plus it's all factual and very recent history of a story of commercial space flight which is still a nascent industry.

However, I'm not as into the space thriller genre and I'm more into engineering itself. This was not a book about engineering. It would bring up the name of these different types of engines and different spacecraft components but never tell you specifics about them. It's just not a technical intro to SpaceX, it's a startup-to-dominance, rose-tinted tale of early company days; like going to a company reunion and listening to people recall their favorite memories to each other. I'm sure technical aspects are available if I google it.

The thing that stuck with me from the book is an excitement about SpaceX and what it might do in the future. Also, the singularity of Elon Musk is astounding; everyone knows that but it comes through the book a bit as well. Also, any story of difficult engineering working out is inspirational to me as an engineer. I don't typically approach my work with this kind of insane zeal, but I hope some zeal has sept into me out of this book.