SpaceX's Dragon and Starship

SpaceX's Dragon and Starship is the electrifying story of how two revolutionary spacecraft - one proven, one poised to change everything - are shaping humanity's future in space. This is the inside scoop on how SpaceX took the hard-won experience of building and flying Cargo Dragon and Crew Dragon and used it as the springboard to develop the most ambitious space vehicle ever: Starship.

From delivering supplies to the ISS to launching astronauts safely into orbit, Dragon proved that commercial spaceflight could be fast, reliable, and reusable. But Dragon wasn't just about missions, it was about learning. Every docking, every reentry, every splashdown was a step toward something bigger. And that something bigger is Starship: a fully reusable, stainless-steel rocket designed to carry humans to the Moon, Mars, and beyond.

Packed with thrilling accounts of test flights, behind-the-scenes innovation, and bold engineering decisions, this book shows how lessons from Dragon - from life support systems to heat shields and redundancy - directly informed the design of Starship. Whether you're a space enthusiast or just love a good underdog-turned-powerhouse story, this is your ticket to understanding how two ships - Dragon and Starship - are launching us into a new era of exploration.

Describes the development and design of the Dragon spacecraft, built by SpaceX, and its variants in the industry Expands on the author's previous book "SpaceX" to provide more in-depth information on the latest spacecraft, Starship Presents a viable and reusable alternative to Soyuz for resupply to the International Space Station

Autorentext

Erik Seedhouse is a professor in Spaceflight Operations at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University, where he teaches courses on life support systems, the International Space Station, the Space Shuttle, Space Operations, and military space applications. He holds pilot, scuba, and sky-diving licenses and in his spare time works as an astronaut instructor for the International Institute of Astronautical Sciences, a film consultant to Hollywood, a professional speaker, triathlon coach, author, and science advisor to the Proteus Ocean Group. He regularly ventures into the mountains and has reached the summits of Kilimanjaro, Aconcagua, Elbrus, Rainier, Island Peak, Denali, Kosciusko, and in 2022 the South Summit of Everest. In his previous life he was one of the world's leading 100-km runners and the world number one ranked ultradistance triathlete, winning the World Double Ironman Championships and the infamous Decatriathlon, a ten-times Ironman distance race requiring athletes to swim 38km, bike 1800km, and run 422km. He has written 30+ books about crewed spaceflight and spends much of his spare time in his home country of Norway. Erik s burning ambition has always been to be an astronaut, so if a benevolent crypto billionaire happens to be reading this, the author would like you to know that his space suit is already packed please feel free to fund his flight and contact him directly ideally before the next market crash.

Inhalt

1 SpaceX: The Mars Messiah's Mission.- 2 From Partners to Pioneers: How NASA Fueled SpaceX's Ascent.- 3 Engines That Rewrote the Rules of Spaceflight.- 4 From Falcon 1 to Falcon Heavy: Rockets That Revolutionized Spaceflight.- 5 Dragon's Ascent: From Concept to Spacecraft.- 6 Building the Mars Messiah's Mars Rocket: The Starship Revolution.- 7 Ignition and Ambition: How SpaceX's Integrated Flight Tests Turn Fireballs into Forward Motion.- 8 The Mars Machine: How Starbase and Star Factory are Building the Road to the Red Planet.- 9 Hard Tech, Soft Bodies: Starship Meets Human Biology.