After the successful launch, as I was scrambling to fundraise for Tesla in 2008, NASA called out of the blue to tell me SpaceX had won a contract. I couldn’t believe it. I screamed, “I LOVE NASA. YOU GUYS ROCK,” then hung up. I called our president, Gwynne Shotwell, and told her to immediately sign whatever deal NASA offered.638
It felt like I had been blindfolded and taken out to the firing squad. Then they yelled, “Fire” and the guns just went “click.” No bullets. Then they let me free. Sure, I was glad to be alive. But I was still pretty fucking nervous.639
My estimate of success was not far off.
We just made it by the skin of our teeth.
We had developed the Dragon spacecraft somewhat opportunistically. NASA announced they were going to retire the space shuttle, and they didn’t have the budget to develop a new vehicle with cargo transport capability to the space station.
They put it out to bid for the first time in NASA history. It was quite a big step, and we were lucky enough to win one of those contracts. Then, the other company wasn’t able to execute, and SpaceX ended up being the primary means of transporting cargo to and from the space station.640
Our rocket ended up costing around $6 million, super low compared to other rockets in that class, which were about $25 million. We’re about a quarter of the price of Boeing or Lockheed. Once it was reusable, payload delivery could be two orders of magnitude cheaper.641
After we did the first two space station resupply missions, which thankfully both worked, NASA said, “What about astronaut transport?” They put out a big competition and awarded two contracts for astronaut transport, one to Boeing and one to SpaceX. Now, we transport astronauts to and from the space station.642