How to Make a Spaceship

A Band of Renegades, an Epic Race, and the Birth of Private Spaceflight

By: Julian Guthrie, Richard Branson - preface, Stephen Hawking - afterword

Narrated by: Rob Shapiro

Length: 16 hrs and 36 mins

Publisher's summary

The historic race that reawakened the promise of manned spaceflight.

Alone in a Spartan black cockpit, test pilot Mike Melvill rocketed toward space. He had 80 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.

Peter Diamandis was the son of hardworking immigrants who wanted their science prodigy to make the family proud and become a doctor. But from the age of eight, when he watched Apollo 11 land on the moon, his singular goal was to get to space. When he realized NASA was winding down manned space flight, Diamandis 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 an unlikely place: 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 is an extraordinary tale of making the impossible possible. It is driven by outsized characters - Burt Rutan, Richard Branson, John Carmack, Paul Allen - and obsessive pursuits. In the end, as Diamandis dreamed, the result wasn't just a victory for one team; it was the foundation for a new industry and a new age.

©2016 Julian Guthrie (P)2016 Penguin Audio

Critic reviews

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

“Guthrie has a gift of building suspense around these airborne incidents of inherent drama - such as a balloon flight gone wildly wrong that ends in a botched parachute jump - as well as larger questions about space, technology and life’s purpose ... How to Make a Spaceship is ... ultimately flight-worthy and impressively ambitious. When the history of 21st century American space efforts is written decades or centuries from now, this book will be a valuable contemporary record of what it was like when humanity was trying to break out of its home.” (San Francisco Chronicle)

“[How to Make a Spaceship] reads like a thriller. The story sounds incredible, as if torn from the pages of science fiction. And it has a happy ending. But as with all entrepreneurial ventures, nothing went according to plan: It was riddled with failure and disappointment; ugly battles broke out between friends and founders; the world often looked like it was coming to an end; and Diamandis had to gamble everything he had.” (Vivkek Wadhwa, Washington Post)

Wow!!

Clear your calendar.
Even if you have zero interest in aviation, spaceflight or history you will want no distractions while absorbing this read.

A motivational story on X Prize

This story will help the next generation of people have a bigger place in there hearts for Space Exploration and technology.

well researched and well told

This book did a super job laying out how difficult it is to get into space. Between the technology, personalities and politics, the book was quite a ride.

Multiple converging stories

Great job at putting together this story of private space flight. I wasn't aware of the major milestones by Rutan in creating momentum for private space flight.

The author tried too hard to make personal connections with characters at times, and this was compounded by a narrator who was overly emotional at the same time; but I still highly recommend this audible.

Listen at 1.5x

Needed to listen at 1.5x but loved it otherwise! Great story, well researched, amazing people.

The stories of each individual are inspiring!

love it! I recommend this book/audio to anyone who needs or wants inspiration. well written and narrated!...I would love to meet Peter Diamandis and the gang.

A Fun and Thrilling Ride

I remember being itty bitty, waking up, wearing PJs, to watch all sorts of fantastical rocket launches. The memories are vague but fun.
So I'm confounded that everything that happens in "How to Make a Spaceship" happened outside my awareness. Did Life really make me that distracted? What fun, then, to take this ride now, with all of the players, big dreamers, small dreamers, all oh so devoted.
This is kind of like "Rocket Boys" meets "The Right Stuff". It follows the creation of a renewed drive to see space entered and goes along to the actual people who strove to make it happen. And all along the way were failures, which I found to be inspiring because people learned from them. They did NOT give up.
Personalities are addressed, hopes, emotions. You're right there, thinking and living with the people. And the writing is superb: some writing reads like straight adventure, and some reads like poetry.
Rob Shapiro does well; nonfiction is hard. But he gets into the grittier parts, breathes life into the parts where words are brushstrokes on a glorious stellar canvas. I dinged him a star, however, because I absolutely had to listen to this at x1.25; it was far too slow going at regular speed. Otherwise, good job.
Wonderful people, lyrical, edge-of-your-seat writing. Only Richard Branson earns the occasional eye roll. I enjoyed every minute, didn't feel the sixteen hours at all. Plus, the epilogue/where-are-they-now was fantastic to hear

Amazing Book

If you are interested in Space this is the best book for you. It is my favorite Space Book.

Lacking details on Burt Rutan & Scaled Composites

The book spends a lot of time discussing the development of the X prize and Peter Diamandis, while devoting only a few chapters to Burt Rutan and Scaled Composites, despite that team winning the X prize.

A great story about our most important next step...

We saw mankind take steps on the moon and were filled with hope. Decades later, so little had been done to further our legacy.

This is a great story, well told, about the next chapter in space flight which, it appears, will either be private enterprise or the Chinese.

If this subject interests you, "The Case for Mars" by Zubrin is a fantastic, educational and thought-provoking book.