The inside story of the billionaires fighting for space

About this episode

The episode discusses the competitive landscape of the modern space race between Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos, featuring insights from Christian Davenport's new book on the subject.

The space race was once between the United States and the Soviet Union; now it’s between two tech billionaires trying to seize the mantle of most powerful space lord. For Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos, the development of SpaceX and Blue Origin respectively is the culmination of a lifetime commitment to technology growth and science fiction. It’s also increasingly a ferocious campaign, one that has turned them from experimental pioneers to aggressive businessmen hoping to seize the future of space’s GDP for themselves.All of this is ably documented in Christian Davenport ’s new book, “ Rocket Dreams: Musk, Bezos, and the Inside Story of the New, Trillion-Dollar Space Race. ” A follow up from his massively popular book “The Space Barons,” the book chronicles the last seven years of the new space race with alacrity and intimate details.Christian and Riskgaming host Danny Crichton talk about how he transitioned from covering Afghanistan and America’s home front in the War on Terror to covering the crazy billionaires at the heart of the space race. Then they talk about Musk’s fight over the United Launch Alliance, why Blue Origin has been taking on more risks in recent years, NASA and the…

People in this episode

Host: Danny Crichton

Guest: Christian Davenport

Topics covered

• space race
• billionaires
• technology
• private spaceflight
• Elon Musk
• Jeff Bezos
• future of space

Keywords

• space race
• Elon Musk
• Jeff Bezos
• Christian Davenport
• SpaceX
• Blue Origin
• NASA
• private companies
• space economy

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: SpaceX, Blue Origin, NASA

Books & works: Rocket Dreams: Musk, Bezos, and the Inside Story of the New, Trillion-Dollar Space Race, The Space Barons

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