Timeline of events -- Introduction: Starship -- Part I: Earth, 2016-2018. "I get this angry twice a year" ; Elon's real superpower ; Converting the impossible to late ; On a jihad ; The dark side of space ; "I'll way you're fired in two minutes" -- Part II: Earth orbit, 2018-2020. Starman ; Flying by swipe ; Question everything ; By any means necessary ; Artemis ; "We just blew it to smithereens" ; "Thank you for flying SpaceX" -- Part III: Beyond, 2020-2025. Super hardcore ; A Chinese flag in the lunar soil ; Can't get it up (to orbit) ; The gremlins of unknown unknowns ; Toxic, limping, abysmal ; Corporate alchemy ; Plant the flag -- Notes -- Acknowledgments -- Index

"A riveting, fly-on-the-wall account of the New Space Age, chronicling Elon Musk's dominant SpaceX, Jeff Bezos's resurgent Blue Origin, and the high-stakes, grit-fueled global battle to push humankind further into the cosmos-from an Emmy and Peabody award-winning Washington Post reporter"--

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?