Make: Technology on Your Time Volume 32

FEATURES MOJAVE MAKERS

James Grover’s rocket blasts off.

Unreasonable Rocketeers

THE NEW SPACE RACE IS MAKER-MADE

Written and photographed by

Charles Platt

While Elon Musk ponders his personal ambition to visit Mars, privately funded space ventures in the grungy little backwater of Mojave, Calif., continue to make rapid progress on a more immediate timescale.

I wrote about them here two years ago (“Rocket Men” in MAKE Volume 24), but events at Mojave have taken an exciting new twist. The Mojave Air and Space Port now has its very own makerspace called Mojave Makers, and the line between professional engineers and the rest of us is becoming difficult ...