How to Make a Spaceship: A band of renegades, an epic race and the birth of private space flight

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		How to Make a Spaceship: A band of renegades, an epic race and the birth of private space flight
		How to Make a Spaceship: A band of renegades, an epic race and the birth of private space flight

Alone in a spartan black cockpit, test pilot Mike Melvill rocketed towards space. He had eighty seconds to exceed the speed of sound and begin the climb to a target no civilian pilot had ever reached. He might not make it back alive. If he did, he would make history as the world's first commercial astronaut.

The spectacle defied reason, the result of a competition dreamed up by entrepreneur Peter Diamandis, whose vision for a new race to space required small teams to do what only the world's largest governments had done before…

From the age of eight, when he watched Apollo 11 land on the Moon, Diamandis’s singular goal was to get to space. When he realized NASA was winding down manned space flight, he set out on one of the great entrepreneurial adventure stories of our time. If the government wouldn’t send him to space, he would create a private space flight industry himself.

In the 1990s, this idea was the stuff of science fiction. Undaunted, Diamandis found inspiration in the golden age of aviation. He discovered that Charles Lindbergh made his transatlantic flight to win a $25,000 prize. The flight made Lindbergh the most famous man on earth and galvanized the airline industry. Why, Diamandis thought, couldn't the same be done for space flight?

The story of the bullet-shaped SpaceShipOne, and the other teams in the hunt for a $10 million prize, is an extraordinary tale of making the impossible possible. In the end, as Diamandis dreamed, the result wasn’t just a victory for one team; it was the foundation for a new industry.

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"Reads like a thriller - and reveals many secrets... one of the great entrepreneurial stories of our time" (Washington Post)

"If you admire those who aim really high, How to Make a Spaceship belongs on your bookshelf... a rousing anthem to the urge to explore." (Wall Street Journal)

"This incredible book is The Right Stuff with afterburners. Intrepid designers and innovators risk their reputations. Gutsy test pilots risk their lives. Explorers push new boundaries of what so many once thought was impossible. All brought together by a real gravity-defying force, Peter Diamandis. How to Make a Spaceship is required reading for anyone who cares about space, aviation, and the future of flight." (Captain Mark Kelly, former naval aviator, test pilot, and NASA astronaut)

"The story of Peter Diamandis is a reminder of the power of passion and persistence. How to Make a Spaceship chronicles the amazing journey of a key figure in the private race to space―a dreamer who, in the face of multiple setbacks and naysayers, simply refused to let go of his dream." (Arianna Huffington)

"I don’t know how Julian Guthrie does it. In her last book, she didn’t race in the America’s Cup, yet readers felt they had. And now in How to Make a Spaceship, although she wasn’t strapped into the cockpit of the first civilian spacecraft to rocket into outer space, her vivid writing places readers right there. With the flair of a novelist and the precision of a fine journalist, she takes readers on a journey not just into space but into the hearts and minds of the adventurers who dare go where NASA no longer does. Her tale will quicken your pulse." (Ken Auletta, author of Googled: The End of the World as We Know It)

作者简介

Julian Guthrie is an award-winning journalist who spent 20 years at the San Francisco Chronicle and has been published by The Wall Street Journal, The Huffington Post, and others. Her most recent book is The Billionaire and the Mechanic, a bestselling 2014 account of Oracle CEO Larry Ellison’s pursuit of the America’s Cup.

网友对How to Make a Spaceship: A band of renegades, an epic race and the birth of private space flight的评论

Think back to Alan Shepard, the first American in space, and imagine if someone had told you that a handful of civilians, without a dime of government funding, would loft two humans into space a scant 43 years later. Yet, spurred by a contest with a generous financial reward, a group headed by legendary aircraft designer Burt Rutan did just that. Especially notable is that the prize money didn't come close to covering their costs, and that's why their story is such a compelling one. The prize was the spark, but internal forces far more profound were driving these people, and it's the human story we get in this book. Read it, then go back and watch the footage of the two winning flights and the events leading up to them. You'll then have a deep and satisfying appreciation for this extraordinary achievement.

A great read, The story weaves together half a dozen character-driven threads. It's all about a cast of large characters: Peter Diamandis (the promoter), Burt Rutan (aeronautics prodigy), John Carmack (software genius), Erik Lindbergh (son of the great aviator), Michael Melvill and Brian Binnie (test pilots). The story brings to life the competition that led to the first reusable commercial suborbital spaceflights, My personal favorite is Burt Rutan. His creations have been amazingly innovative. One of my favorite scenes has MIke Melvill riding on top of the Rutan Raptor UAV prototype, flying it back to base like a some old-time cowboy. The book is packed with great stuff. The winning flights, of course, are the high points of the story. You've got to love the professionalism, determination, calm and expert piloting under pressure of both Melvill and Binnie. The Right Stuff indeed.

Julian Guthrie depicts an incredible story of mind over matter, one's dream to pursue his calling in life and capture a worldwide audience of aspiring creators. Innovators gathered to make the impossible possible and though its process inspire a generation of game changers, this book has already impacted myself and others around me to push the limits that much more and recognize that anything can be done. This copy belongs on every entrepreneur's book shelf as it relates to not only space traveling, but relates the heartaches of determination and tenacity fused with passion.

I am a teenager who loves to make things, and I am now telling all of my friends to read this book. I love how Burt Rutan would never make things that anyone else wanted him to make but instead made things from his own imagination. He refused to follow someone else's rules, and ended up changing the rules. I also really like Peter Diamandis, especially the kid Peter Diamandis. He hoarded explosives and all sorts of chemicals to make his own rockets and engines. He flew rockets (also of his own design) whenever he could. When he grew up, or at least was in college, he kept building things - like the zero gravity machine at MIT. Another super cool person in the book is the pilot Mike Melvill, who is more daring than a lot of superheroes. He flew this little rocket to space, when he was 63. He's one of my heroes now. I read this book in two days - all 400-plus pages. Now I'm going to go out and build my own cool stuff.

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