History of SpaceX

This is a corporate history of SpaceX, an American aerospace manufacturer and space transport services company founded by Elon Musk.

After being ousted as the CEO of PayPal in late 2000, Elon Musk started to gain an interest in space exploration ventures. This spark of interest, according to Musk, came when he is being asked by his friend entrepreneur Adeo Ressi about his plan for the future after PayPal. Musk looked up at NASA's website and was surprised that NASA did not have any concrete plan for a human mission to Mars. He then began to attend space conferences and provided funding for private space projects, which include The Planetary Society's solar sail and the Ansari X Prize crewed spaceflight competition. Musk also pledged US$100,000 to the Mars Society and was invited to be in its board of directors. As early as August 2001, in contemporary sources, Musk has publicly expressed his support for making humans an interplanetary species at the Mars Society's annual convention. The same month, Musk resigned from his position at Mars Society.

According to Robert Zubrin, Mars Society's founder, he provided Musk contact to aerospace engineer Jim Cantrell as a technical adviser for the society's Mars Gravity Biosatellite project. From there, Musk, Cantrell, along with a few other engineers worked on Mars Oasis, a project that aimed to grow a plant in Martian soil as a publicity stunt for garnering interest to Mars missions. Mars Oasis project is independent from the Mars Society. Musk and his team travelled twice to Russia, once in October 2001 and another in February 2002 with Michael D. Griffin, to obtain a refurbished intercontinental ballistic missile to launch Mars Oasis. Both attempts failed – the missiles were outrageously priced by the ISC Kosmotras at $8 million per missile when queried, and the team was concerned that the price would go up even higher after the deal had been finalized. Reportedly, this is because Musk and his team were not regarded highly by the Russians.

After the second failed attempt to procure a missile, the Mars Oasis plan was abandoned and Musk pondered the feasibility of building a rocket himself. As he learned more about the United States space industry, in retrospect, Musk realized that the Mars Oasis mission would more likely lead to an unsustainable Mars program, similar to how the Apollo program operated. According to Musk, the crucial component for a sustainable Mars program is a low launch cost.

In early 2002, with that realization, Musk met with aerospace engineers at a hotel in Los Angeles International Airport to discuss founding a space launch company, with reportedly some having scoffed at the idea. In April, from that group he invited five that could join the company as early employees: Michael Griffin, Jim Cantrell, John Garvey, Tom Mueller, and Chris Thompson. Griffin, Cantrell and Garvey declined the invitation, while Mueller and Thompson became the company's first and second employee respectively. Musk provided half of his $180 million from PayPal stocks to the newly founded company securing both employees with two-years' worth of salary. The company was named "Space Exploration Technologies Corporation", originally with "S.E.T." as a shortened name, but it was quickly changed to be "SpaceX". According to filings, SpaceX was incorporated on March 14, 2002, but according to various sources SpaceX's de facto founding date might instead be May 6 or around June.

Musk assumed the role of Chief Engineer, after having offered the title to Griffin who did not join SpaceX. Mueller was in charge of developing rocket engines, propellant tanks and plumbing; Thompson was in charge of making the rocket's body and couplings. Hans Koenigsmann, who was recommended by Thompson and had met Musk a few months earlier, joined SpaceX and was in charge of making the rocket's avionics (electronic systems). In August 2002, Gwynne Shotwell was hired as the head of sales for the company.

At first, SpaceX's employees would meet at hotels in airports, but later the company headquartered at a building in 1310 East Grand Avenue, El Segundo, California. The building was 3,000 sq ft (280 m²), which at the time housed only a few cubicles and fewer than a dozen employees. The company at the time was under a flat hierarchy, so employees (including Musk) could freely switch roles and do other person's tasks if needed. Musk personally interviewed the first three thousand employees, most were college graduates (because they do not have family attachments), and pushed them to work long hours at their highest effort.

SpaceX's first rocket was named Falcon 1 by Musk, taking inspiration from the Millennium Falcon from Star Wars, and also because the rocket would have only one booster engine.^{[citation needed][further explanation needed]} Falcon 1 was designed with a core tenet of low launch cost; according to contemporary sources the rocket has an advertised price of $6 million per launch. This is the reason SpaceX implemented tight vertical integration for manufacturing rocket parts. Unlike most aerospace companies at the time, the Falcon 1 was developed in an iterative and incremental process instead of the waterfall process. Musk was being extremely optimistic about the launch schedule; he wanted to launch Falcon 1 by the end of 2003, but late December 2005 would be when the rocket was first ready for flight. A mockup for the rocket was first officially unveiled to the public and the government at the National Mall, Washington, D.C. on December 8, 2003.