Planet Labs

When the Heavens Went on Sale: The Misfits and Geniuses Racing to Put Space Within Reach

by Ashlee Vance  · 8 May 2023  · 558pp  · 175,965 words

place you in the heart of the action as people the world over become obsessed by a grand new quest. The story follows four companies—Planet Labs, Rocket Lab, Astra, and Firefly Aerospace—on their missions to build new types of satellites and rockets. The companies, their leaders, and their engineers find

…

the walk, Schingler succumbed to his jet lag and napped. To nap on February 13 struck me as impressive. Schingler had cofounded a company called Planet Labs, which built satellites. In two days’ time, eighty-eight of the shoebox-sized machines were meant to fly into orbit aboard an Indian rocket known

…

have a real chat,’” Worden said. Among the young people at the event were Will Marshall, Chris Boshuizen, and Robbie Schingler, the future founders of Planet Labs, and George Whitesides, who would go on to run the space tourism outfit Virgin Galactic. Some of these men began to form a semicircle around

…

turns of events that resulted from Singularity University’s formation was the arrival at Ames of Chris Boshuizen, who would later go on to cofound Planet Labs. Boshuizen, like so many of Worden’s twentysomething hires, had been part of the Space Generation Advisory Council, the collection of youthful space idealists. He

…

strike some as trivial or silly. In this case, though, they point to the mysterious underpinnings behind invention. It’s unlikely that the idea for Planet Labs could have originated anywhere else than among a collection of do-gooders egging one another on. And it’s unlikely that anyone other than Will

…

, though, that the name was lost on everyone. It was a terrible name. But in our fever dream, it seemed fantastic.” Cosmogia soon morphed into Planet Labs, and about six months into 2011, the company started to assemble its team. Along with Marshall and Boshuizen, Robbie Schingler joined as a cofounder. Schingler

…

go on the start-up adventure, including Vincent Beukelaers, Matthew Ferraro, Ben Howard, James Mason, and Mike Safyan. Like any good Silicon Valley start-up, Planet Labs sprang to life in a garage. The team would discuss their concepts in the comfort of the Rainbow Mansion and then head to their garage

…

been particularly active in that region, and there were vast areas of flat land available there. Through his hobbyist work, Eveleth had set up a Planet Labs account, and he began pulling up images and dividing thousands of miles of desert into grids that he searched one by one. It took more

…

analyst to obtain a photo of an area of interest on demand unless it happened to be a spot that was already under surveillance. Before Planet Labs arrived, that meant that a company or individual might submit a request for an image and then wait months for the picture to arrive. A

…

not think the Falcon 1 served a practical purpose. In 2008, companies still made large satellites that required large rockets. Devices like those built by Planet Labs were several years away from becoming mainstream. SpaceX might have crafted a perfectly fine small rocket, but no one needed it at the time. Founded

…

$300 million. The customers paying for those launches had large satellites that cost anywhere from $100 million to $1 billion to make. Companies such as Planet Labs with smaller satellites and less money typically paid to be excess cargo on other companies’ rockets. Their machines were tucked into spare nooks and crannies

…

several months. The small satellites were treated as second-class citizens. Rocket Lab, by contrast, would cater to small-satellite makers’ every need. Companies like Planet Labs would no longer have to wait around for a lucky moment when some extra cargo room on a big rocket freed up. They could order

…

while speaking to the first batch of investors in Silicon Valley had come to fruition. Dozens of satellite start-ups had sprung up to mimic Planet Labs, and they all wanted cheap, quick rides to space. Huge companies such as SpaceX, Samsung, and Facebook were talking about sending up tens of thousands

…

their software. During that launch, dubbed “Still Testing,” the machine performed as well as a second rocket ever had. It deposited a Dove satellite from Planet Labs in a near-perfect orbit, and it unleashed a secret surprise. Rocket Lab had tucked something it called “Humanity Star” into the rocket. It was

…

toward flying large spacecraft. But that’s kind of old space. Now we have smaller spacecraft like these satellites made by one of our customers, Planet Labs. Inside a small spacecraft are batteries, electronics, a bit of code, and solar panels. Every single one of those technologies has gone through a massive

…

expected London to come around and dish the whole story eventually. And then, in February 2017, a funny thing happened. While I was traveling with Planet Labs’ Robbie Schingler in India, Schingler mentioned to me that he’d been spending some time at a secret rocket company in the middle of San

…

on and some of these start-ups got funding, I thought we’d missed our opportunity. Then, in late 2015, Adam met this guy through Planet Labs named Chris Kemp.” Kemp and London were both men, but that was where their similarities ended. Kemp marched into Ventions with his optimism and ambition

…

from Ames and the Rainbow Mansion, to come give a talk to all the Stealth Space employees. Levit spent his days working on satellites at Planet Labs but had a hobby studying aerospace history. His lecture centered on why rockets are so hard to make and fly. “Nothing much has happened in

…

a job offer for a satellite start-up, took the gig, and helped it build its offices and laboratories. The company was Terra Bella, which Planet Labs eventually acquired. Smith took the money he received from the sale and directed it toward real estate, creating a small Bay Area empire. “I try

…

focused on building out the network of communal houses throughout the Bay Area and overseas, while her husband, Robbie, worked alongside Will Marshall to build Planet Labs. Kemp had brought Jessy Kate to the rocket venture in the hope that she could apply her coding skills to the machine. At first, she

…

public, but the men did not really care for each other. Kemp had visited Rocket Lab and Beck while scouting launch companies on behalf of Planet Labs and had been given the royal treatment. Beck had flown Kemp by helicopter to Rocket Lab’s launchpad on the Māhia Peninsula. He had also

…

Earth. “We are going to enable a whole new frontier and a whole new group of pioneers to go build things in space,” he said. “Planet Labs took a decade and a billion dollars and thirty generations of Doves to make their system work. Well, there are four hundred space companies now

…

that have been formed since Planet Labs. They’ve raised tens of billions of dollars. It’s a crazy amount of money. They are all focused on Earth. They are connecting things

…

space projects will do so much better.” When the pandemic first engulfed the world, it looked as though the entire New Space gang, excluding SpaceX, Planet Labs, and Rocket Lab, might disappear. The rocket-making start-ups had all been struggling. The satellite start-ups were plowing through cash while they awaited

…

of a sideline. He funded a company called EOS Data Analytics that took satellite images and analyzed them more or less in the spirit of Planet Labs, and he funded a few engineering projects in Ukraine. But that was the extent of his space empire. As stories of Firefly’s financial issues

…

were startling. You could see thousands of SpaceX’s Starlink satellites arranged in a mathematical grid pattern around Earth. Hundreds more satellites from OneWeb and Planet Labs were tucked into the matrix. There were also debris fields stretching all the way around our planet. The most notable recent spray of debris had

…

satellite was destroyed, it broke into more than 1,500 pieces. To make sure that their satellites don’t collide, companies such as SpaceX and Planet Labs pay LeoLabs to find their machines in space and keep track of their movements. If LeoLabs sees the possibility of a collision coming, it notifies

…

denying that it planned to invade Ukraine. Its propaganda and politicking, though, stood no chance against the images being produced on a daily basis by Planet Labs. The world could see Russian forces gathering on the Ukrainian border. We all knew what was to come. As the war progressed, Planet’s images

…

true Space War. The tools built by commercial space companies gave Ukraine advantages that humbled the Russian military and altered the course of the conflict. Planet Labs went public in December 2021, during the height of the SPAC frenzy. It raised hundreds of millions of dollars and became valued at close to

…

start-up from New Zealand called Rocket Lab. In late 2021, he flew to space as a tourist aboard a Blue Origin rocket. Outside of Planet Labs, Marshall, Robbie, and Jessy Kate have spent much of the last few years trying to start a human colony on the moon, as you do

…

which robot probes would be placed on the surface. After that, a habitat would be built. Sergey Brin and the Russian tech investor and early Planet Labs backer Yuri Milner were proposed as the financiers of the program, and the meetings often took place at Milner’s $100 million mansion in Silicon

…

a cheap rocket at a moment’s notice so that the military could spy on whatever it wanted to. Without Worden, there might be no Planet Labs or Astra. It takes some squinting, but there might not even be a SpaceX or Rocket Lab. After all, it was Worden who talked the

…

, 449n Blum, Michael, 423–424 Boeing, 53, 443n, 454 Bolden, Charles, Jr., 423 Boshuizen, Chris arrival of at Ames, 62–63 departure from Planet Labs of, 488 founding of Planet Labs and, 100–102 goals of, 26 Lego satellite and, 87–88 PhoneSat project and, 89–96, 97 small satellites and, 98–100 Worden

…

–141 first launch and, 226–227 flight frequency of, 16 kick stage for, 230–231 launch challenges and, 214–218, 220–221 Markusic and, 424 Planet Labs and, 107 reusability and, 490 schedule and, 224 second launch and, 227–228 size comparison of, 395 success of, 337–338, 365, 369 third launch

…

and, 63–64, 86–88 analyses of, 79–80 background of, 81–86 Dove project and, 103–104 espionage accusations against, 65–68 founding of Planet Labs and, 100–102 goals of, 26 Kemp and, 59–60, 254, 272–273, 274 London and, 286n lunar lander and, 476 at NASA, 55–57

…

and, 71–73, 74–78 recent work of, 488–489 small satellites and, 98–100 success of, 488 on transparency, 124–125 on use of Planet Labs’ images, 126–127 Whitesides and, 423 Worden and, 50, 51 Marshall Matrix, 79–80 Marshall Space Flight Center, 53, 56, 57, 72, 85, 268, 413

…

, 83–84, 489–490 patterns of life, 120 Pearl Harbor, 115 Penrose, Roger, 85–86 Perot, Ross, 60–61 PhoneSat project, 89–96, 97, 102 Planet Labs as change agent, 132–133 China’s nuclear arsenal expansion and, 113–115 Doves (satellites) and, 396 factory of, 108–109 first satellite project of

…

location for, 215–220, 397 launch vehicles of, 395 Los Angeles office of, 208 Markusic and, 424 military and, 195–197, 198–199, 202–203 Planet Labs and, 107 regulatory efforts and, 220–223, 456 salary discrepancies and, 235 schedule and, 224 SpaceX and, 242–243 SPACs and, 389 start of, 139

…

, 28–30 Schingler, Jessy Kate (née Cowan-Sharp), 71–75, 102, 324–325, 423, 488–489 Schingler, Robbie Dove project and, 103–104 founding of Planet Labs and, 101 goals of, 26 in India, 25, 27 Kemp and, 59–60, 254 launch attempts and, 28–33 at

…

Planet Labs, 325 Rainbow Mansion and, 71, 73, 75 recent work of, 488–489 success of, 488 Ventions LLC and, 250 Whitesides and, 423 Worden and, 50,

…

and, 291 launch location for, 397 LeoLabs and, 482 Markusic and, 415–420 Martin at, 356 NASA and, 435 number of satellites and, 127–130 Planet Labs and, 29 progress of, 214 Rocket Lab and, 138, 141, 188, 242–243 Russian invasion of Ukraine and, 487–488 Starship and, 13 Worden and

…

/Boshuizen project and, 100 Office of Strategic Influence and, 48–49 Open Lunar Foundation and, 488 Parkin and, 73 PhoneSat project and, 94–95, 102 Planet Labs’ founders and, 50 recent work of, 490 responsive space and, 250 SDI and, 46–48 at Space and Missile Systems Center, 36–37 SpaceX and

…

mass production model. You can read the paper here: https://www.fourmilab.ch/documents/rocketaday.html. * Except for brain surgery, of course. * At one point, Planet Labs had considered getting into the rocket launch business and talked with London about the idea. London credited Will Marshall with proposing the notion of launching

…

eased any tension caused by that performance. * In fact, he thought that venture capitalists were the scum of the earth. * He had also invested in Planet Labs. * The onboard reading material included Farm and Ranch, which advertised large properties for sale, and Executive Controller, which advertised private planes for sale. * He even

The Metaverse: And How It Will Revolutionize Everything

by Matthew Ball  · 18 Jul 2022  · 412pp  · 116,685 words

selection of different lamps (each one purchasable through Matterport), or to operate our entire smart home, including electricity, security, HVAC, and more. Another example is Planet Labs, which scans nearly the entire earth via satellite each day and across eight spectra bands, capturing not just high-resolution imagery, but details including heat

…

on-site. Epic Games’ Quixel, meanwhile, uses proprietary cameras to generate environmental “MegaScans” comprising tens of billions of pixel-precise triangles. The satellite imaging company Planet Labs, mentioned in Chapter 7, performs scans of nearly the entire earth daily across eight spectra bands, enabling not just daily high-resolution imagery, but details

…

sent from each of these satellites per second and from an average distance of 1,000 kilometers. Will Marshall, the CEO and co-founder of Planet Labs, believes that the cost per performance of these satellites has improved by 1,000 times since 2011.6 Such scanning devices make it easier and

…

comparison, China has fewer than 500 satellites, while Russia has fewer than 200. However, they are typically far larger and more capable than those of Planet Labs. † Lidar determines the distance and shape of objects by measuring the time it takes for a reflected laser (i.e., light beam) to return to

…

own. Notably, Niantic was originally a subsidiary of Google, but was spun out in 2015. Two years later, Google sold its satellite imaging business to Planet Labs. In 2016, the company began building a cloud game-streaming service, Stadia, which launched at the end of 2019. Earlier that year, Google also announced

…

, 166 Pichai, Sundar, 143, 239 pinching, 152–53 “pinch-to-zoom” concept, 149–50, 151 Pixar, 29–30, 36–37, 82, 89–90, 118, 136 Planet Labs, 119, 156–57, 275 PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds (PUBG), xiii, 91, 115–16, 117, 303 PlayFab, 107, 108, 117 PlayStation consoles, 32, 65, 81, 89–90

Unit X: How the Pentagon and Silicon Valley Are Transforming the Future of War

by Raj M. Shah and Christopher Kirchhoff  · 8 Jul 2024  · 272pp  · 103,638 words

was changing. Space launch and satellite operations had once been controlled by NASA and the military, but the success of new players such as SpaceX, Planet Labs, Blue Origin, and others was already disrupting and transforming the fundamentals of the space industry. The government no longer shouldered the cost of building spacecraft

…

was all part of the “flatter world” that Chris had written about in 2016. Silicon Valley tech companies leapt into the fray to support Ukraine. Planet Labs’ electro-optical satellites were surveilling the battlefield. HawkEye 360, a company Raj had invested in, intercepted Russian radio messages. Skydio, the first U.S. drone

…

by the Deputy Secretary of Defense at the In-Q-Tel CEO Summit,” San Jose, CA, February 25, 2016. See also “Deputy Secretary Work Visits Planet Labs,” February 25, 2016, https://www.defense.gov/Multimedia/Photos/igphoto/2001459490/. Lockheed deployed a SAR sensor on its SR-71 Blackbird: “Synthetic Aperture Radar: ‘Round

…

–64, 224 Pentagon. See U. S. Department of Defense Perry, William, 171 Petraeus, David, 134 Picatinny Arsenal, New Jersey, 43–44 Pivotal, 55, 56–58 Planet Labs, 79, 202 Podesta, John, 61–62 Pottinger, Matthew, 141 Pratt & Whitney, 215 Profiles in Courage (Kennedy), 246 Project Maven, 100, 116–22, 132, 203 AI

…

project, 74–86 for Google Earth, 190 “Guo Wang” satellites, 225 HawkEye 360, 181, 189, 202, 232 KH-1 Corona, 77 optical-based, limitations, 83 Planet Labs, 202 reconnaissance, 77, 79, 80, 83 Starlink, 201, 204, 224–25 Scale AI, 169, 239 Donovan platform, 239 Schadlow, Nadia, 139–40, 141 Schmidt, Eric

Exponential Organizations: Why New Organizations Are Ten Times Better, Faster, and Cheaper Than Yours (And What to Do About It)

by Salim Ismail and Yuri van Geest  · 17 Oct 2014  · 292pp  · 85,151 words

in investment that was lost on Iridium and other satellite efforts in the 90s. Today, twenty years later, a new breed of satellite companies—Skybox, Planet Labs, Nanosatisfi and Satellogic—are all launching nanosatellites (which are, essentially, the size of a shoebox). The cost per launch is about $100,000 per satellite

…

cluster of nanosatellites operating in a coordinated, meshed configuration, the capability of these new satellites blows away what the previous generation could do. For example, Planet Labs already has thirty-one satellites in orbit and plans to launch another one hundred during 2014. Satellogic, operating out of Argentina, has already launched its

Space 2.0

by Rod Pyle  · 2 Jan 2019  · 352pp  · 87,930 words

this a step further by providing standardized cubesat deployment mechanisms that work with the International Space Station’s robotic arm. A NanoRacks assembly deploys two Planet Labs Dove cubesats from the International Space Station. Image credit: NASA NanoRacks’ CEO Jeffrey Manber previously worked on various space enterprises, including a stint as a

…

from national security satellites to tiny cubesats engineered by university students. They also provided some of the first commercial hardware to fly on the ISS. Planet Labs is another Space 2.0 success story. The company was founded in 2010 by a pair of NASA engineers to design, manufacture, and fly small

…

be capable of imaging Earth at a fraction of the cost of existing satellites. The company’s designs are based on the cubesat form factor. Planet Labs’ satellites are called 3U (3-unit) cubesats, and they are about four by four by twelve inches in size. They don’t require dedicated launches

…

-based interface. With almost two hundred satellites currently in orbit, their “fleet” is currently the largest ever flown by one company. Planet Labs cubesats ready to go. Image credit: NASA/Planet Labs Made In Space, Inc. is another interesting example of space entrepreneurism operating in a newly discovered market niche. The company was started

…

say that I love investing in passion-driven businesses,” he says. 86 His interest in companies like SpaceX; Tesla, Inc. (also owned by Musk); and Planet Labs (a private satellite imaging company) stems largely from the people who started them. “The founders do not put profits as a number-one priority; they

…

they didn’t think they could survive a fourth failure. We invested just before that fourth flight,” he says with a laugh. Jurvetson invested in Planet Labs after meeting an engineer who had moved from NASA to Google to work on cubesats. “I met a guy from NASA who was flying smartphones

…

was that they could make a cubesat and fly it close to Earth and get images as good as others that fly farther away.” Since Planet Labs built its business on inexpensive cubesats, using mostly off-the-shelf electronics and flying in low Earth orbit, its costs were far lower than traditional

…

cost of larger, higher-orbit satellites,” Jurvetson says. “I met with them a few months before we invested and they were working in a garage. Planet Labs has now launched more satellites than everyone else combined.” Jurvetson is interested in working with people like himself, leaders in finance who have the passion

…

opportunities in space. Someone will come up with a great business where space will be an important piece of that.”87 Orbital image from a Planet Labs Dove satellite, built inexpensively from largely off-the-shelf components. Image credit: NASA Individuals are investing in Space 2.0 in record numbers and amounts

…

, 41 Pittman, Bruce, 199–200, 205–206, 208 PLA (People ‘s Liberation Army), 193 Planetary Resources, 158, 180, 217 The Planetary Society, 230, 265, 266 Planet Labs, 105–106, 106, 159, 160, 160 plasma shielding, 90 plastic, in spacecrafts, 87 Pluto mission, 132 pressure suits, 69–71, 70, 199 pressurized, 291 Prince

…

, 71–72, 184 satellites Chinese, 195–196 commercial, 28–29 global broadband internet via, 130–132 Indian, 176, 177, 178 in low Earth orbit, 107 Planet Labs, 160 for small launches, 102 solar-power, 204, 234, 248 space entrepreneurs and, 93–100 weather, 235 Saturn, 170, 197 Saturn V moon rocket, 17

…

Blue Origin, 101–102 Richard Branson, 94, 97, 100 defined, 292 Firefly Aerospace, 103 Kymeta, 102 Made In Space, Inc., 106–107 NanoRacks, 105, 106 Planet Labs, 106 Rocket Lab, 103–104 and space settlements, 236 Stratolaunch, 102 Vector Space Systems, 104 Virgin Galactic, 93–101 Virgin Orbit, 100–102 George Whitesides

…

, 155, 158–160, 159 Elon Musk, 154, 158, 159 mutual funds for, 154 NanoRacks, 154, 157 NewSpace, 152 Orbital Sciences, 152, 158 Planetary Resources, 158 Planet Labs, 159, 160, 160 Sea Launch, 153–154 Space Angels, 155, 155–158 Spacehub, 153, 153 Space Services Incorporated, 152, 153, 154 SpaceX, 156–160 Tesla

Super Founders: What Data Reveals About Billion-Dollar Startups

by Ali Tamaseb  · 14 Sep 2021  · 251pp  · 80,831 words

most common, but deep-tech and medium-tech companies were more likely to achieve billion-dollar valuations. One example of a deep-tech company is Planet Labs, founded in 2010. It monitors the Earth continuously and can produce one picture each day from any location on the planet. How? The company developed

…

had worked at NASA for years on similar projects, but it still took them over three years to launch Planet Labs’ very first satellite, in November 2013. Because of this deep-tech innovation, Planet Labs has dispatched hundreds of satellites—the largest constellation of imaging satellites—to cover the entirety of Earth with their

…

for clinical trials, which can be very expensive. Companies building medical devices, healthcare services, hardware, material science, or energy products all face the same challenges. Planet Labs, which places imaging satellites into the Earth’s orbit and sells the data and insights collected by the satellites, has incredibly high capital needs. But

Exponential: How Accelerating Technology Is Leaving Us Behind and What to Do About It

by Azeem Azhar  · 6 Sep 2021  · 447pp  · 111,991 words

understood how the expensive process of precision fermentation (which involves genetically modified microorganisms) would get cheaper and cheaper. Executives at space companies like Spire and Planet Labs understood this process would drive down the cost of putting satellites in orbit. Companies that didn’t adapt to exponential technology shifts, like much of

…

photolithography, 19 Pigou, Arthur Cecil, 97 Piketty, Thomas, 160 Ping An Good Doctor, 103, 250 Pix Moving, 166, 169, 175 PKK (Partîya Karkerên Kurdistanê), 206 Planet Labs, 69 platforms, 101–3, 219 PlayStation, 86 plough, 157 Polanyi, Michael, 133 polarisation, 231–4 polio, 246 population, 72–3 Portify, 162 Postel, Jon, 55

Connectography: Mapping the Future of Global Civilization

by Parag Khanna  · 18 Apr 2016  · 497pp  · 144,283 words

local knowledge and essential insight for everything from simple commuting to delivering supplies during humanitarian disasters.*1 We can now even insert updated imagery from Planet Labs’ two dozen shoe-box-size satellites into 3-D maps and fly through the natural or urban environment. All of this is coming to the

…

constantly updates data on transportation networks, store locations, and myriad other content generated and verified through aerial imagery, GPS devices, and other tools. PLANET LABS https://www.​planet.​com/ Planet Labs uses a network of low-orbit satellites to capture the most current images of the entire earth and form composite digital renderings that

Green Swans: The Coming Boom in Regenerative Capitalism

by John Elkington  · 6 Apr 2020  · 384pp  · 93,754 words

space agencies that have dominated space for years are no longer the only game in orbit. A couple of years ago, for example, I visited Planet Labs in San Francisco. They are part of a very different space industry now challenging NASA, the European Space Agency, and their Russian, Chinese, and Indian

…

problem get? SpaceX alone plans to send up nearly 12,000 small internet-beaming objects over time. OneWeb has designs on some 700 similar sats. Planet [Labs] just launched around 100 that take pictures of the Earth’s entire landmass every day. And those are just the heaviest hitters. Little orbiters—especially

…

, 231–232 Phelan, Ryan, 231–232 philanthropy, misuse of, 13 Piketty, Thomas, 60 Pinker, Steven, 28 placebo buttons, 43–46, 54 Plan B work, 234 Planet Labs, 114, 115 plant-based meat, 233 Plastic: A Toxic Love Story (Freinkel), 92–93 A Plastic Ocean (film), 92 plastics, as wicked problem, 92–97

The New Gold Rush: The Riches of Space Beckon!

by Joseph N. Pelton  · 5 Nov 2016  · 321pp  · 89,109 words

as to provide planetary coverage by a network of small satellites. Examples of these include Iridium and Globalstar for mobile satellite communications, Terra Bella and Planet Labs for remote sensing, and the planned OneWeb satellite constellation that is optimized for low latency Internet-based networking. All these systems and more are in

The Geek Way: The Radical Mindset That Drives Extraordinary Results

by Andrew McAfee  · 14 Nov 2023  · 381pp  · 113,173 words

How Big Things Get Done: The Surprising Factors Behind Every Successful Project, From Home Renovations to Space Exploration

by Bent Flyvbjerg and Dan Gardner  · 16 Feb 2023  · 353pp  · 97,029 words

Pragmatic.Programming.Erlang.Jul.2007

by Unknown

New York 2140

by Kim Stanley Robinson  · 14 Mar 2017  · 693pp  · 204,042 words

Empty Vessel: The Story of the Global Economy in One Barge

by Ian Kumekawa  · 6 May 2025  · 422pp  · 112,638 words

The End of Astronauts: Why Robots Are the Future of Exploration

by Donald Goldsmith and Martin Rees  · 18 Apr 2022  · 192pp  · 63,813 words