The new space race is playing out in real-time on social media. It’s all in this subscriber-only edition of Musk Reads+ #114.

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As private companies like SpaceX, Blue Origin, Virgin Galactic, and others race to boost access to space, fans pore over specs and stats to better understand how humanity plans to move into the stars. It’s a far cry from the sixties-era space race, where televised images were cutting-edge.

A key focal point of this new movement is Reddit’s SpaceX subreddit. With over one million subscribers, it’s played host to several question-and-answer sessions from the biggest names in space:

• Elon Musk hosted an “ask me anything” session in October 2016 to supplement his talk on making humanity a multi-planetary species.

• The SpaceX software team explained in a May 2021 session how Starship’s software completes the landing maneuver.

• Robert Zubrin, president of the Mars Society, hosted a September 2021 session where he explained how “the purpose of going to space is to create new nations.”

The community's volunteer moderators like Forest Katsch work tirelessly to maintain this beating heart of the movement while keeping discussions on track. Speaking to Inverse in July 2020, the 25-year-old Texas-based software developer explains how he was first inspired when he saw the Falcon 9 Grasshopper tests in 2013 to 2014.

“My first thought was, ‘this has got to be fake’,” he says. “You can't do this, rocket engines can't fly like that!”