I wrote this book for one simple reason: after a lifetime of watching rockets behave like overgrown fireworks, I'm done pretending that's the best we can do. For decades we've strapped explosive fuel to metal tubes, lit the fuse, and hoped the whole thing didn't shake itself apart before reaching orbit. It's impressive, sure, but it's also outdated, unstable, and rooted in physics that stopped surprising anyone sometime around the Cold War. After watching rockets thunder off launch pads, rattle themselves half to pieces, and occasionally scatter themselves across the landscape in ways that make insurance companies sweat, I finally reached the obvious conclusion: we can do better.
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