Liftoff summary

When Musk gathered leading aerospace engineers at that LA hotel, not all of them were dismissive. Some actually showed enthusiasm – including Tom Mueller and Chris Thompson, both rising stars in the world of aerospace.

Musk set up his new company, Space Exploration Technologies, or SpaceX, on May 6, 2002. The ambition was to build cheap, high-quality rockets quickly. Mueller and Thompson were among the first to join – and very soon, they began to see that, at SpaceX, things were going to be different.

Why did people who knew aerospace well initially dismiss Musk? Well, many of them had seen people like him come and go. They saw Musk as just another millionaire indulging his space fantasy – and they were sure he’d fail.

And at the front of their minds was one man in particular.

When SpaceX asked the US Air Force for permission to launch from California’s famous Vanderberg site, Musk’s team thought it would be a done deal. It did meet all the criteria in its application, after all.

But the Air Force had other ideas. At the time, in the early 2000s, it was using Vanderberg to prepare its own rocket launches. The Air Force had invested $200 million to modernize the site. The plan was to use it for rockets built by the aerospace giant Lockheed Martin. No wonder the Air Force was reluctant to let the upstart company come in and risk damaging all of this new equipment.

On Friday, March 24, 2006, nearly six years since Musk founded SpaceX, his fledgling company was ready to launch its first rocket, named the Falcon 1. The launch would take place on Omelek Island.

After a series of tests and aborted launch attempts, came the day when SpaceX would prove itself. The engineers had put their everything into the Falcon 1.

Throughout SpaceX’s history, there’ve been many times where Musk had to ruffle the feathers of established industry players. As he faced skepticism from big aerospace companies, the government, and the military, his instinct was to deal with trouble head-on. His ambition was to shake things up, to push space exploration further after decades of stagnation.

He certainly wasn’t going to take the easy road.

SpaceX didn’t give up after that failed first launch. Twice more, it tried to send Falcon 1 into orbit from Omelek. Even though it had made progress on both attempts, the rocket never quite made it all the way to space. In the eyes of its governmental and commercial clients, Musk’s company was unable to perform as advertised.

SpaceX desperately needed success on its fourth attempt. And there were more pressing reasons than just reputation and PR: Musk’s money was running out.