“Thrilling . . . an important tale of how American ingenuity and entrepreneurial spirit is
creating a new type of space age.”—Walter Isaacson New York Times bestselling author of Elon
Musk Musk vs. Bezos. China vs. the United States. The government vs. the private sector.
Welcome to the rivalries and alliances defining the New Space Age. At stake? Trillions of
dollars national prestige and a place in the history books. “A fine piece of reporting
historians will be able to use this first draft of rocket history to craft deeper analyses of
our first real steps as a space-faring society.”— The New York Times Moon landings and space
walks once captivated the public’s attention. But in recent decades the U.S. space enterprise
has felt moribund. Now that’s finally about to change. A fleet of powerful new rockets is
poised to take humans into the cosmos more than ever before. A lunar land rush has sparked a
geopolitical competition among nations. And the world’s two richest men have engaged in
escalating brinkmanship as NASA and the U.S. government embraces Silicon Valley innovation to
jump-start the nation’s ambitions. Space has entered a golden age and this is just the
beginning. In this gripping work award-winning Washington Post writer Christian Davenport
chronicles the mad scramble to shape humanity’s off-planet future. He takes readers behind the
scenes at NASA and the Pentagon as China’s aggressive moon mining plans raise alarms onto the
sprawling Cape Canaveral factory where Blue Origin is working toward Amazon-style lunar
deliveries and onto SpaceX launch pads as Musk’s engineers log 100-hour weeks—leaving veteran
astronauts marveling that they’re now operating “flying iPhones.” What will happen as human
ambition outpaces governmental regulation? Which country will win the race back to the moon?
Was Donald Trump’s much-derided creation of the Space Force a surprising act of foresight and
will the U.S. finally make a real push to the moon and eventually toward Mars? Masterfully
paced rigorously reported and vividly told Rocket Dreams offers a riveting fly-on-the-wall
account of the grit-fueled global battle to push humankind further into the cosmos—revealing
that the science fiction dreams of the last century may soon become our reality.
