''How to Make a Spaceship: A Band of Renegades, An Epic Race, And the Birth of Private Spaceflight'' () is a bestselling award-winning 2016 non-fiction book by journalist Julian Guthrie about the origins of the X Prize Foundation and
Peter Diamandis
Peter H. Diamandis (; born May 20, 1961) is a Greek Americans, Greek-American engineer, physician, and entrepreneur best known for being founder and chairman of the X Prize Foundation, cofounder and executive chairman of Singularity University a ...
Anousheh Ansari
Anousheh Ansari ( fa, انوشه انصاری ; née Raissyan; born September 12, 1966) is an Iranian American engineer and co-founder and chairwoman of Prodea Systems. Her previous business accomplishments include serving as co-founder and CEO o ...
, the entrants into that suborbital spaceflight competition, and the winning team,
Mojave Aerospace Ventures
Mojave Aerospace Ventures (MAV) is a company founded by Paul Allen and Burt Rutan to handle the commercial spinoffs from the Tier One project. It owns the intellectual property arising from Tier One, and it is in turn owned by Allen (the majori ...
of
Vulcan Inc.
Vulcan LLC is a privately held company founded by the Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen and his sister Jody Allen in 1986 to establish and oversee the family's diverse business activities and philanthropic endeavors. It includes Vulcan Real Estate ...
,
Paul G. Allen
Paul Gardner Allen (January 21, 1953 – October 15, 2018) was an American business magnate, computer programmer, researcher, investor, and philanthropist. He co-founded Microsoft Corporation with childhood friend Bill Gates in 1975, which h ...
SpaceShipOne
SpaceShipOne is an experimental air-launched rocket-powered aircraft with sub-orbital spaceflight capability at speeds of up to 3,000 ft/s (900 m/s, 3240 km/h), using a hybrid rocket motor. The design features a unique "feathering" a ...
and
WhiteKnightOne
The Scaled Composites Model 318 White Knight (now also called ''White Knight One'') is a jet-powered carrier aircraft that was used to launch its companion SpaceShipOne, an experimental spaceplane. The White Knight and SpaceShipOne were designed b ...
.
Synopsis
The book is an overview of what led to the creation of the X Prize, and the running of that first X Prize. Profiles of all the major players in the X Prize saga are included in the book. It chronologically starts with the influences that weighed upon Peter Diamandis, and his progression into the space industry. It also covers the process to get funding, rejections, and the arrival of the Ansaris, becoming title sponsors. The book surveys several of the teams that entered into the competition to win the Ansari X Prize. The team that is focused on most is that which won the X Prize in 2004, the one headed by Paul Allen and Burt Rutan, of SpaceShipOne. The book ends with an epilogue about
Richard Branson
Sir Richard Charles Nicholas Branson (born 18 July 1950) is a British billionaire, entrepreneur, and business magnate. In the 1970s he founded the Virgin Group, which today controls more than 400 companies in various fields.
Branson expressed ...
's
Virgin Galactic
Virgin Galactic is an American spaceflight company founded by Richard Branson and his British Virgin Group retains an 11.9% stake through Virgin Investments Limited. It is headquartered in California, and operates from New Mexico. The company i ...
The book was originally entitled ''Beyond: Peter Diamandis and the Adventure of Space'', when it was sold preemptively to
Penguin Books
Penguin Books is a British publishing, publishing house. It was co-founded in 1935 by Allen Lane with his brothers Richard and John, as a line of the publishers The Bodley Head, only becoming a separate company the following year.2017 PEN/E.O. Wilson Literary Science Writing Award. The publication won the 2016 Eugene E. Emme Award for Astronautical Literature in September 2017. It became a ''New York Times'' listed bestseller. The book has appeared on several "Best Of" book lists. Several parties have expressed interest in obtaining the filming rights to the book.
Reception
Gregg Easterbrook's review in the ''Wall Street Journal'' said of the book that “''How to Make a Spaceship'' offers a rousing anthem to the urge to explore."
Tom Wolfe
Thomas Kennerly Wolfe Jr. (March 2, 1930 – May 14, 2018)Some sources say 1931; ''The New York Times'' and Reuters both initially reported 1931 in their obituaries before changing to 1930. See and was an American author and journalist widely ...
about the U.S. side of the Cold War Space Race
* ''
The Spirit of St. Louis
The ''Spirit of St. Louis'' (formally the Ryan NYP, registration: N-X-211) is the custom-built, single-engine, single-seat, high-wing monoplane that was flown by Charles Lindbergh on May 20–21, 1927, on the first solo nonstop transatlanti ...