Chap­ter 23 titled “Two Strikes” delves into the intense peri­od in SpaceX’s his­to­ry cov­er­ing their ear­ly launch attempts in Kwa­jalein (Kwaj) dur­ing 2006–2007. It begins with Elon Musk and his broth­er Kim­bal on the island for the first Fal­con 1 launch attempt on March 24, 2006. Despite the pre-launch stress, Musk is depict­ed as being dis­tract­ed with future projects, ques­tion­ing his engi­neers about mate­ri­als for the Fal­con 5. This behav­ior exem­pli­fies Musk’s relent­less for­ward-think­ing but also shows a moment of dis­con­nect from the imme­di­ate mile­stone of Fal­con 1’s launch.

As the first launch com­mences, excite­ment quick­ly turns to dis­may when a fuel leak trig­gers a fire, lead­ing to the mis­sion’s fail­ure. Musk, vis­i­bly moved by the set­back, declares their inten­tion to try again despite the blow. This pat­tern of ini­tial fail­ure, fol­lowed by deter­mi­na­tion to per­se­vere, is a hall­mark of SpaceX’s ear­ly years. Musk’s response to fail­ure is to dive into prob­lem-solv­ing, look­ing to hold spe­cif­ic indi­vid­u­als respon­si­ble, as seen when he ini­tial­ly blames engi­neer Jere­my Holl­man for the leak due to a reat­tached B‑nut. How­ev­er, it’s lat­er revealed that the true cul­prit was cor­ro­sion exac­er­bat­ed by Kwa­j’s sea air, absolv­ing Holl­man.

The nar­ra­tive then tran­si­tions to the prepa­ra­tions for the sec­ond launch attempt. It details Musk’s strat­e­gy of bal­anc­ing cost reduc­tion with risk man­age­ment, high­light­ing his approach to inno­va­tion and prob­lem-solv­ing. Notably, Musk’s will­ing­ness to accept cal­cu­lat­ed risks does not waver, despite the fail­ure of their first attempt. This mind­set is evi­denced by the deci­sion to use cheap­er mate­ri­als for cer­tain com­po­nents, such as the B‑nut, and to con­front issues like fuel slosh­ing with prag­mat­ic solu­tions rather than cost­ly overengi­neer­ing.

Through­out, “Two Strikes” paints a vivid pic­ture of the highs and lows that define start­up cul­ture, espe­cial­ly with­in the ambi­tious are­na of space explo­ration. Musk’s lead­er­ship style—demanding, for­ward-look­ing, yet some­times controversial—is on full dis­play, as is the resilience and com­mu­nal spir­it of the SpaceX team. Despite ear­ly fail­ures, the chap­ter encap­su­lates a piv­otal moment where the foun­da­tion for future suc­cess­es is laid, under­scored by Musk’s relent­less pur­suit of space explo­ration and inno­va­tion.