This article is from WeChat public account:Tengyun (ID: tenyun700), author: Lin-kai, from the cover: Oriental IC
With the first pot of gold in his life, Musk just wanted to send humans to Mars. After a “deceived” experience, the angry Iron Man found a more urgent task.
Arthur Clark, author of “2001 Space Roaming,” conceived a satellite communications network after World War II: based on Nazi-developed V2 rockets, three satellites placed in geosynchronous orbits tens of thousands of kilometers off the ground. Broadcasting television programs to all human beings.
Clark’s satellite communications were quickly implemented in the Cold War. Military satellites and television satellite systems were quickly established by placing a satellite to monitor nuclear weapons, capture topographic maps, and spread ideology to people.
This is the original story of satellite communications.
In the 1980s, mobile communication systems developed rapidly and the Cold War situation gradually eased. In order to win the first opportunity, Motorola began to envision a global satellite network to cover the world, so whether you are on a polar expedition or boating in the Pacific Ocean, you can call your family.
This is the famous “Iridium” program.
In the traditional commercial narrative, “Iridium” has become a typical case of big company innovation failure: the idea of satellite phone was born ahead of time, but it took 10 years to do it.come out. At this time people began to use cheap 2G networks. What’s more, in 2000, it would cost $3,000 to buy a mobile phone and $3 in a minute. If you don’t pay attention, you will go bankrupt because of a phone call.
But the comet is not inferior to the ground mobile communication system in many respects.
In terms of technical structure, Comet first realized the “interstellar link” that the US military had, enabling 66 satellites to communicate with each other. The purpose of the “interstellar link” technology is to allow satellites to transmit information to nearby companions, so that they can take the shortest path in the sky and transmit information to the ground. In the end, the builders of satellite networks will not have to build so many terrestrial gateways.
In terms of shareholding structure, Motorola has recruited telecom investors from all over the world to build ground gateways in their respective districts, thus reducing their own construction costs. In the end, the shareholding structure of Iridium is highly global, and foreign shareholders have also helped the comet to win the communication band.
It seems to be a perfect business, so where is the problem with the comet?
A comet satellite object
The time left for the comet to manufacture and launch the satellite is too short.
Motorola took three years to demonstrate, build a technical structure, and then spent several years looking for external shareholders to raise funds and lobby the government and international organizations. For the remaining two years, Motorola used the efficient division of labor system to find others to build satellites and launch satellites. At the time, Motorola also launched several satellites with China’s Long March rocket.
In hindsight, if the 2G network is not spread out so quickly, the comet may have some chance of winning for a while. But even so, continue to develop, the prospect of comet is still not so optimistic.
We can simply compare the difference between a satellite network and a base station network.
Motorola spent more than $5 billion to build a satellite network. 66 satellites are in the pipelineAfter the output came, the rockets of the United States, China and Russia were deployed in one year.
Building a base station network is not the same. The operator will choose pilot operations in densely populated and economically developed regions, and then gradually build this base station network according to the budget and communication needs.
Iridium satellites can cover the globe almost
Compared with the two phases, the trial and error cost of satellite networks is too high. There is only one chance, and the cost of building satellites and launching satellites is externally determined and it is difficult to come down. After all, the military complex supported by the US state finances has long been accustomed to slow pace of development and comfortable life. Motorola does not have enough capacity to make a cheap enough satellite and rocket in a short period of time.
Therefore, Motorola built a civil satellite network on a military complex. This is a fundamental, irreconcilable contradiction. One year after the birth of the comet, it was forced to file for bankruptcy because of heavy operating costs and a customer base of only tens of thousands.
Where will satellite communications go?
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The bankruptcy of the comet has shaken many people. When a superstar falls, someone tries to save, and someone tries to change the way to revolution.
American veteran military entrepreneur Corussi spent $25 million to buy the comet. He re-positioned the satellite system to find new customers for the comet.
Compared with the mobile communication system of a thousand miles, the comet is outdated, but still has great value. For the US military, this satellite phone system is worth tens of millions of dollars a year to support the SEAL operations; for oil companies and cross-border transportation companies, as long as a sensor is placed, Iridium can help them at any time. Monitor drilling platforms and large trucks and transfer data to the company at any time; for sailors andFor the explorers, the comet’s equipment is expensive, but it has a life-saving value.
Culushi has thus established a satellite Internet of Things. Instead of trying to get the comet against a cheap cell phone, he chose to return to the original path of the military complex to serve the military, big companies and the rich.
In the ten years that Corussi took over, Comet had almost no technical innovation. Because Motorola is designed to be too redundant, satellite life has been extended for another decade.
Dan Clusi
When the comet ushered in a new owner, Musk earned the first pot of gold from his venture in Silicon Valley. He is preparing to march into space.
When he first arrived in Los Angeles, “Mars Colonization” was Musk’s greatest interest. He tried to find information about the Mars program on the NASA website, but did not find any clues. This made Musk disappointed. In his view, there should be a spirit of exploration in the bones of the Americans, the gold mining in the west, the space race… Where did the American spirit of “destination expansion” go?
In order to explore the Martian colonization plan, Musk joined the Mars Society and subsequently established the Mars Life Foundation. In the form of a hotel meeting, Musk has a group of space think tanks.
He discussed with NASA engineers how to get the plane to glide on Mars and find the water source, and discuss with the former executives of the satellite spacecraft how to use the rocket to launch the mechanical greenhouse onto Mars. In order to make the Martian colonization plan rooted, Musk even discussed the need to conduct Mars education for young Americans and convince them that “maybe we can go to Mars.”
Muske went to Russia with his several thought tanks to inspect it. They tried to buy rockets from the Russians at a cheap price, but the Russians did not take him seriously, and Musk thought that he was blackmailed by others, so he returned home in anger.
At this time, Musk produced an idea –
Why are youCan’t build a rocket?
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I made rockets myself, and Musk finally stood at the beginning of the transformation of the space industry. After he established SpaceX, he did not immediately do the satellite industry, but the revolution in the rocket industry has opened up the chain reaction of the space industry.
The satellite industry is behind, but it will eventually change.
From the satellite communications industry, the schemes of Musk and Cluj are completely different. Corussi brought the comet back to the highly coupled military complex. Based on his mission of Mars colonization, Musk tried to use the efficient operation of Internet companies to create cheaper, recyclable rockets, thereby reducing the cost of satellite launches. In the space map he built, almost all of the costs were controlled by himself, and the vertical division of labor used by traditional military complexes such as Boeing and Lockheed Martin was lost.
Muske found a supplier to the aerospace industry, but expensive charges and slow processes are stifling. At the beginning of its establishment, it was difficult for SpaceX to allow suppliers with a high degree of coupling to the aerospace system to act in accordance with their radical Internet approach. Musk decided not to look for suppliers in the system and instead looked for similar manufacturers in other fields. If the supplier is dragged down, the corresponding department is set up directly within the company.
SpaceX revived the inventor culture of the early Industrial Revolution.
Unlike Boeing, a traditional manufacturer that remotely separates engineers and workers, SpaceX puts its desks in the factory, and scientists, engineers, and workers work together. In such a workshop-style factory, each highly educated researcher has the ability to actually make rocket parts. Musk turned his strictly selected staff into a “Muske”.
It is not easy to lead a group of inventors to work in an orderly manner. Musk is a “wild” genius programmer, but when he created the zip2 and X.com companies, his guidance for software engineers was still widely criticized. It is more difficult to hire a group of aviation engineers to build a rocket than to manage a code farmer. The scientific principle is even more difficult. Component manufacturing is a systematic project. A boss who does not understand rocket technology will cause unpredictable disasters.
Muske’s response is that he has built himself into an interactive learning machine.
In the factory, Musk pursued engineers to ask technical questions in various textbooks until they mastered most of the expertise. Engineers gave Musk technical knowledge, and Musk made quick decisions, giving engineers an extremely tight schedule that would cost them 90% less to build rocket parts. If an employee says that he can’t finish, Musk will take his work and finish it himself.
The establishment of a radical timetable often makes it impossible for companies to deliver work to the outside world on time, which makes the outside world ridiculous. But with the strengthening of Musk and his staff’s two-way learning, Musk is increasingly able to come up with accurate requirements, and the prediction bias of the working nodes is shrinking dramatically.
Muske’s judgment on cost reduction is surprisingly accurate. An employee applied for a $120,000 budget to buy the supplier’s electric actuators to control the rocket’s flight direction, and Musk asked for the thing to be built at a cost of under $5,000. Finally, the actuator was built in nearly a year and cost only $3,900.
Employees’ high-intensity technology-based learning has greatly enhanced SpaceX’s ability to innovate. In the early days of the company’s development, this single-strength cooperative technology research and development mechanism produced a ten-fold change in the rocket manufacturing industry.
SpaceX effectively migrated the technical knowledge of other industries to the rocket. The friction stir welding technique was first applied to the rocket’s body, and the Falcon rocket’s weight was reduced by a few hundred pounds. This technology was later transferred to Tesla, sparking a wave of learning in the field of electric vehicles.
In addition, SpaceX applied a large number of general consumer electronics products in the process of rocket construction. After the launch test, NASA finally adopted the same or better performance SpaceX design.
Overview of SpaceX’s research and development process, the company does not seem to have much significant innovation. What SpaceX does is not a thing of the past. More often, Musk is fully mobilized from the vision of “mass Mars colonization” to fully reorganize, arrange and construct various elements, so that the cost of rockets continues to decline.
Muske must have felt the true meaning of innovation economics when studying for a double master’s degree in economics and physics. Schumpeter put forward the argument that “the essence of entrepreneurship is innovation” as early as the beginning of the 20th century. In the era when Musk went to school, the scholars of the “Capability School” believed that the core competitiveness of enterprises is through networked, gradual, and high-intensity “learning.”
But the cost of pre-technical learning is still quite high. SpaceX failed to launch three times in 2006, 07 and 08 until the fourth launch in September 2008. At the end of the year, SpaceX funds were on the verge of bankruptcy, and Musk was deceived to persuade investors to pay for their lives. At the same time, he successfully lobbied NASA to bring $1.6 billion in space station transportation orders to SpaceX.
