You’d be forgiven if the words “SpaceX” and “Elon Musk” summon audacious images of Martian cities complete with wet bars and pizza joints. After all, Musk, the private rocket company’s founder, has repeatedly said he wants all these things on the red planet.
But behind this sci-fi visionary veneer is a serious startup that, circa 2009 — with SpaceX’s first successful launch of a commercial payload into orbit — began smashing up a walled garden and opening up a flood of ideas within, and investment into, the space industry.
