On September 28, 2008, Elon Musk and SpaceX altered the history of the cosmos. On that fateful day, the then-struggling company sent the first privately developed liquid-fuel rocket — Falcon 1 — into orbit.

The launch set off a domino effect, sparking the growth of other companies aiming to launch rockets and satellites more quickly and cheaply than the government agencies and contractors that had run the game since Neil Armstrong's “giant leap for mankind.”

That’s the argument made by tech journalist and author Ashlee Vance in his new book When the Heavens Went on Sale: The Misfits and Geniuses Racing to Put Space Within Reach. Vance is intimately familiar with Elon Musk — he released a biography on the infamous tech mogul in 2015.

Inverse spoke with Vance to learn more about his reporting — and what he predicts for the coming decades of the rapid-fire commercial space race.