1 minute read
Touchdown by Eric Berger
PHOTO CREDIT: LEE HUTCHINSON
AGENT
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Jeff Shreve
PUBLISHER
BenBella
PUBLICATION
Spring 2024
STATUS
Manuscript due spring 2023
LENGTH
80,000–95,000 words
RIGHTS SOLD
• World English Language (BenBella) • Japan (Kagaku-dojin) • Korea (SangSang Square)
Touchdown
Elon Musk, SpaceX, and the Limitless Future of Reusable Spaceflight
ERIC BERGER
The behind-the-scenes story of the most important rocket ever built – SpaceX’s reusable Falcon 9 – and the people who brought humankind one giant leap closer to Mars
SpaceX began with a simple distinct goal: to put a single-engine rocket into orbit. Achieving that goal in 2008 was ground-breaking, but not revolutionary –humanity has been putting rockets into orbit for over 60 years.
What SpaceX has done in the decade since, however, is truly transformative. Since 2008 the company has launched more than 120 missions, developed 3 new rockets, flown 10 astronauts (and counting) into orbit, begun testing Starship, the craft that promises to take humans to Mars, and now operates more satellites in space than any other company – or country – in the world.
SpaceX’s massive success has been made possible by one fundamental breakthrough that will enable humans to return to the Moon and then forge ahead to Mars: the ability to launch a rocket into orbit, guide it back to Earth’s surface safely and launch it again, and again, and again. Through the eyes of engineers on test stands in Texas, the launchpads in Florida and the factory floor in California, TOUCHDOWN tells the story of this revolutionary reusable rocket, the Falcon 9, and the behind-the-scenes drama as SpaceX built the future of human space exploration.
Eric Berger has been a reporter and editor in Houston for more than two decades. After a long career at the Houston Chronicle, he joined Ars Technica in 2015 as the site’s senior space editor, covering SpaceX, NASA and everything beyond. A certified meteorologist, he also maintains a widely read weather forecasting website for the greater Houston area, Space City Weather. He was a Pulitzer Prize finalist for his coverage of Hurricane Ike at the Chronicle in 2008.
