Disappointing!

This book’s title is a misnomer. The question of launched rockets landing back on Earth to be reused is only treated incidentally over a couple of pages (about 40 % of the way through), as well as in the short epilogue.

Basic issues in that respect are not developed to any significant extent:

• why was re-entry not implemented from the start of the space program?
• why was it not adopted in the following decades (in the spirit of the space shuttle)?
• what constraints apply in terms of physics and what technological challenges does it entail?
• why do fictional works continue to describe space travel as humdrum as flying in an airplane?

This work deals instead with the latest 15 years in the history of Elon Musk’s firm Space X, starting with the development of the Falcon 9 rocket at the end of the 2000’s.

The approach is not factual but consists rather in a collage of personal experiences by a series of Space X employees. It deals with issues important to each of them, that are not necessarily crucial in the big picture. Thus, the reader must complement the information provided with other sources to reach a basic understanding of events.

At times, the firm comes out as utterly disorganised. It is difficult to imagine for instance that it had not examined beforehand how to transport a rocket from Texas, where it was built, to Florida, where it was to take off.

Overall, the author’s intention seems to underscore that rocket science_ gasp_ is not simple and requires hard work.

Surely, interviews with employees were authorized by the firm. Though fragments of conversation are mentioned, none appears however to have been carried out « on the record » with Elon Musk, the elephant in the room.

His avowed intention of colonizing Mars appears to awe the author. He does not in any way allude to the fact that getting humans there would only be a baby step in making the place life sustainable.

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