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Christian Davenport (11:05)

Foreign.

Maria Varmazes (11:13)

Davenport journalist and author of the book Rocket Dreams Christian will be at spacecom next week in Florida and joined me to talk about his latest book, which came out last September, and I asked Christian to tell me about the questions that he was setting out to answer in Rocket Dreams.

Christian Davenport (11:33)

It's really interesting when you talk about writing a book like this that is sort of a contemporary history and you're dealing about events in real time and you're, you know, got a ringside seat to it, but then you know that it's gonna be published and you know the sort of in a way the story continues, right? So you have to end these books on ideas, not just events, because the events become quickly dated. But I think, you know, sort of the outstanding questions and where the book leaves is actually perfectly for where we are now because the book sort of sets us up at a moment where we're returning to the moon under the Artemis program. SpaceX and Blue Origin, the companies operated by Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos, have positioned themselves to help NASA do that, to indeed help them land astronauts on the lunar surface. And you're seeing that play out. So in a way I was a little bit worried about how things were going to set up, but the events unfolded just sort of like perfectly for the book to sort of set things up to where we are today.

Maria Varmazes (12:37)

Can you give me maybe a chronology of so again, the book came out last September, but what's the time span that it covers?

Christian Davenport (12:43)

Yeah, it really picks up when, you know, we had the beginning of the first Trump administration come into office and after Obama, I think a lot of people in the space community felt like NASA and the space community as a whole was a little bit directionless. I mean, there had been this plan to go to Mars, like called it the journey to Mars to go to an asteroid. And when the Trump administration came in, they sort of very clearly scratched and said, we're going to go back to the moon, and we need to not only go back to the moon, but to create a sustainable presence on the moon, a moon base. And they did that in a way to sort of make it so that it would be, in a sense, bulletproof. That the reason why we haven't been back to the moon in 1969, it's not because of NASA, it's not because of technology, it's because of political will and that you have in America. If one administration comes in, says, we're going to go to the moon, the next one says, no, no, no, we're going to go to Mars.

Cybersecurity Announcer (13:38)

And.

Christian Davenport (13:38)

And NASA keeps getting pointed around. And what they wanted to do was, you know, create a program that would sustain, and they were successful. And so the book sort of covers that chronology through the Trump first Trump administration, through the Biden administration, and then into the, you know, the beginnings of this new administration today. And what you're seeing is how they brought in the commercial sector, they brought in SpaceX, and you get a real behind the scenes look at, you know, the way Elon operates and the way SpaceX does what it does, has achieved its extraordinary success. And then also behind the scenes with Jeff Bezos and Blue Origin. And then I think finally in this book, there's a real broadening of the aperture where you see the sort of geopolitical aspects and the space race with China that is really emerged to the forefront. So, yeah, so that's sort of your timeframe.

Maria Varmazes (14:33)

So I'd love to talk a little bit about your conversations and coverage of SpaceX and Blue Origin. Obviously, we're all very fascinated by what these two amazing companies are doing. And I'm just curious. You must have done. I can't even imagine how many hours of coverage of both companies, if anything, in all the years of your work for this book specifically stands out. Favorite anecdotes? Any experiences that you want to share?

Christian Davenport (14:57)

Yeah, I mean, I think one of my favorite stories, when you look at SpaceX and how they've achieved the enormous success that they have, and you can be an Elon fan or an Elon hater, but the fact of the matter is SpaceX has been enormously successful and one of the Anecdotes I tell is a story about how when they were competing for the contract to fly NASA astronauts to the International Space Station and their spacecraft, of course, would have to dock with the International Space Station, which is something that NASA's invested $100 billion in. You have six astronauts or so at any given time living there. You really don't want any kind of collision with the International Space Station. So NASA said, we're going to give you the docking mechanism for free, and all you have to do is bolt it onto the end of your spacecraft and you're going to dock with our space station. We want you to use it. A young SpaceX engineer who hadn't even been at SpaceX very long took one look at this docking system and was like, you know what? It's not very good. I can build something better and simpler, and rejected it and went and built something literally in the prototype was using the shock absorbers from a mountain bike because he thought a spring system would be better to sort of as a dock. So I think that sort of creativity and that kind of innovation shows how SpaceX is, has gotten ahead the way that it has.

Maria Varmazes (16:17)

Yeah, And I feel like it's also very emblematic of the mythology around SpaceX and why it has so much allure for so many. I'm curious also about Blue Origin. There's been a lot of motion from Blue Origin in ways that I have found positively surprising, almost like coming from behind Story. I wasn't expecting to hear so much. And you must have seen this coming. So I'm just curious what you saw.

Christian Davenport (16:41)

Yeah, I think a lot. Some of us did see it coming. A lot of people have been hoping for it to come. I think it's been a long time coming and delayed. I mean, I think a lot of people wanted them to show up earlier. But yes, finally Blue Origin had a very good year. In 2025, they launched their new Glenn rocket. This is their rival to SpaceX's Falcon 9. It's a big rocket that can go to orbit, and they landed it on the second launch. The idea is building rockets that are reusable to drive down the cost of access to space. They've got some real momentum. I mean, Jeff, I think a lot of people think, had been treating Blue Origin as a hobby for a long time, that he wasn't serious about it, even though he's investing, as he said, a billion dollars of his own money into it every year is sort of this again, just sort of like a think tank almost and not moving ahead quickly, the way that SpaceX was and Jeff wasn't devoting his time to it. But, you know, since he stepped down as CEO of Amazon, he's been spending a lot more time focused on Blue Origin. You're seeing that have an effect and it's possible they actually land a spacecraft, a robotic spacecraft that won't be any people on it, but on the moon this year. And that would be, I think, an enormous success and surprise people even more that they've been able to do that or at least to attempt a lunar landing. But it has been a long time coming. Yeah.

Maria Varmazes (18:04)

Yeah. I'm curious about other space industry companies that maybe didn't make it into the book that you're also very interested in and keeping an eye on.

Christian Davenport (18:13)

Yeah, I mean, there are several. I mean, you know, on the rocket side, we talk a lot about, you know, Rocket Lab. I think Stokespace is a really interesting company. But the interesting thing I think now about where we are in this sort of growing space economy is that we focus, you know, so much in, like, in mainstream media and authors and the press on, on the rockets and the astronauts and more recently, the billionaires, the space barons. But what's happening is a blowing up and a growing of the ecosystem beyond that. So you're seeing companies like Interlude, for example, which was founded by Rob Myerson, the former president of Blue Origin, that wants to do lunar mining, mine helium 3 on the surface of the moon. You're seeing companies that are building rovers that would go on the lunar surface, that would be autonomous. You're seeing companies, you know, Blue Origin is working on this with, you know, companies like Axiom that are building commercial space stations, that are building spacesuits, that are building ways to create power on the surface of the moon. So again, a broadening of the space ecosystem beyond just sort of the means of transportation, the rockets and the spacecraft. But then once we get to where we're going, what can we do to live and to thrive and to build?

Maria Varmazes (19:30)

Yeah. And also with all these companies building out this ecosystem, I'm wondering also about the bureaucracy that often they complain about is hampering them. So what's your take on that, the current state and maybe where it's going to go?

Christian Davenport (19:44)

Yeah, I mean, that's one of the concerns about NASA that as it's gone into middle age or even older age, it's developed very hardened bureaucracies. And particularly after, after two space shuttle disasters that cost the lives of 14 people, I think a lot of people think it retrenched and it bore the scars of those tragedies and became risk averse and lost the swagger and the boldness that it had during the Apollo era. I think that's one of the things that we're seeing the new NASA administrator, Jared Isaacman try to attack. And you hear him just in the last couple of weeks saying, I want to flatten the bureaucracy. I want good ideas to come up. I want to liberate the great minds at NASA, NASA so that they can do what they need to do. And if he's able to do that and you have a more liberated NASA collaborating with the private sector, collaborating with international partners, I think that's how some of these bigger goals are achieved.

Maria Varmazes (20:47)

Any thoughts about other parts of the bureaucracy? I'm thinking like the faa. Anything in the other parts of the federal government.

Christian Davenport (20:53)

Yeah. And you know, one of the ones that I think gets is misunderstood and I don't know if this is where you're going with your question, but the United States Space Force.

Maria Varmazes (21:04)

Sure. Yep.

Christian Davenport (21:05)

Which, you know, is I think becoming an increasingly important part of the Pentagon and could very well be a force that helps drive innovation and the use of the commercial sector. Because, you know, while NASA has a budget of about $25 billion, you know, the Pentagon is many, many, many more times that, you know, in the $800 billion range, which is not where the Space Force is. But as you see the Space Force increase in popularity or increase in importance at a time when we're seeing, you know, China and Russia emerge with new kind of capabilities and new threats in space that, that could really help drive innovation as well and collapse perhaps some of what people perceive as the bureaucratic crust that has stood in the way of so much innovation from taking place.

Maria Varmazes (22:03)

Yeah. It sounds like you're hopeful for the pace of innovation to accelerate.

Christian Davenport (22:09)

I think so. Because I think you've seen companies like SpaceX just show how it can be done in an area in a domain where there hadn't been much innovation for decades, frankly. And then all of a sudden you have a company that's flying rockets once every two days, that's reusing them, that is able to fly people and so fly, fly people safely. And now working on other new technologies like being able to have propellant depots in space. I think that's really important. You talk about a reusable rocket that was sort of an innovative technology many maybe 10 years ago. But if you look at what's the new technologies that are coming, if you can refuel your spacecraft in space, that could be game changing. I mean, imagine if you're in your car driving from Florida to California but you can't refuel and all the fuel you have to take with you, that makes it a really difficult trip. So if you can refuel in space, I think that will change the way that we interact with space.

Maria Varmazes (23:24)

We'll be right back.

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Maria Varmazes (24:16)

The man, the Myth, the Legend no exaggeration on any of those the Buzz Aldrin, the second human being to ever walk on the moon, today turns 96 years old Here we are, more than 50 years after Apollo 11 and Aldrin's story, his courage and his boot prints still frame how we think about exploration, risk and what it means to go somewhere where no one has gone before. Buzz Aldrin is one of our last living bridges to the Apollo ERA, and as NASA's Artemis program works towards returning astronauts to the lunar surface one day, Buzz Aldrin's legacy feels especially close and highly relevant. After all, Artemis 2 just rolled out to the launch pad over the weekend. And soon, yes, actually soon, we will see humans returning for a flight around the moon after more than 50 years away, and the achie achievements of the incredible Artemis 2 crew will be truly standing on the shoulders of giants like Buzz Aldrin. The path forward for Artemis and beyond still traces back to those first steps from Neil Armstrong and Buzz. So it is always worth taking a moment while we still have some of our Apollo moonwalkers with us. Happy Birthday Buzz and thank you for helping light the way that we've been following again. And that's T minus. Brought to you by N2K CyberWire we'd love to know what you think of our podcast. Your feedback ensures we deliver the insights that keep you a step ahead in the rapidly changing space industry. If you like our show, please share a rating and review and your podcast and app. Please also fill out the survey in the show notes or send an email to space2k.com we are proud that N2K Cyberwire is part of the daily routine of the most influential leaders and operators in the public and private sector. From the Fortune 500 to many of the world's preeminent intelligence and law enforcement agencies, N2K helps space and cybersecurity professionals grow, learn and stay informed as a nexus for discovery and connection. We bring you the people, the technology and the ideas shaping the future of secure innovation. Learn how@n2k.com N2K Senior Producer is Alice Carruth. Our producer is Liz Stokes. We are mixed by Elliot Peltzman and Trey Hester with original music by Elliot Peltzman. Our Executive producer is Jennifer Ivan. Peter Kilby is our publisher and I am your host, Maria Varmazes. Thank you for listening. We'll see you tomorrow.

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