Maniac, rich man, scientist, entrepreneur, he is the real “Iron Man”
Editor’s note: This article comes from the WeChat public account “far reading oceans” (ID: readabroad) , author: ReadAbroad.
Recently, the manned dragon spacecraft developed by SpaceX was successfully launched with two NASA astronauts.
This is the first manned launch in the United States since the spacecraft was retired in 2011.
More importantly, this is the first manned launch by a commercial organization in human history.
△ Manned Dragon Spaceship
In the past, manned launches were all things that national institutions could accomplish. Now, as a private commercial organization, SpaceX has successfully completed this project.
This marks the beginning of a new era: manned spaceflight enters the business era.
The person who started this new era is Elon Musk, the founder of SpaceX.
△ Elon Musk
As early as 1992, when Musk dropped out of school to start his own business, space became one of the three areas he wanted to go to (the other two areas were: the Internet and clean energy), but people just regarded him as a madman. See, because it’s too self-control.
After nearly 30 years passed, Musk became the first person in commercial exploration in the space field. His rocket was requisitioned by many governments and he successfully carried out a manned launch.
There is no ancient man before, and there is no later arrival. People no longer call him “crazy” Musk, but regard him as an adventurer.
Where did Musk’s adventurous spirit come from, and why did he get involved in space? Today we will talk about this topic.
· 01 ·
Musk’s spirit of adventure
Musk’s Adventure EnlightenmentFrom his maternal grandfather Joshua Norman Holdman.
At the peak of his career, his grandfather resolutely sold all his property, and left the family with his family to settle in South Africa.
At that time, he was 48 years old, and he chose South Africa because this African country sounds like a place of adventure. In fact, my grandfather had not been to South Africa before.
In South Africa, his maternal grandfather began to explore nonstop, once taking the whole family into the jungle to find the lost city, the family was almost buried in the lion’s mouth.
△ Grandfather took the whole family for adventure
When my grandfather was nearly 50 years old, he flew tens of thousands of kilometers in a plane he assembled, traveling from South Africa to Norway and then to Australia.
The airplane my grandfather assembled was very rudimentary, with no instruments on it, no radio, no aerial map. But this also cannot stop his love of adventure.
After many deaths, he ended his crazy life at the age of 72 when he accidentally piloted a plane to practice landing and broke his neck.
When his grandfather passed away, Musk was just a toddler, he had not witnessed these crazy stories with his own eyes. But since he was young, he has listened to his family over and over again, and has seen many slides related to his grandfather.
Musk has always regarded his grandfather as an idol. In his view, the adventurous spirit is an important part of life.
In the process of growing up, Musk will also try some adventurous activities intentionally or unintentionally. In addition, when South Africa was in a turbulent period, it was full of crazy violence.
There is nothing crazy about doing anything. For example, Musk, who was a teenager, once made a rocket model. That is not a paper prop model. It can be used to drive a real “launch”. Rocket.
△ Musk’s 18th birthday
The power plant of the rocket is also made by Musk. He mixes strong acids and strong bases together with chlorine particles. This mixture produces a huge explosionThe breaking effect can be used to propel rockets to “launch”.
It is not a safe thing to make explosives. If you fail, you will blow up 10 fingers. But Musk was safe in the production process.
You can attribute it to luck, but behind luck, more importantly is Musk’s mastery of related knowledge and principles.
· 02 ·
Nerd Musk
Since childhood, Musk has been a complete nerd. Reading books for 10 hours a day is commonplace for him.
When he was in the third grade, he had read all the books in the school and the neighboring library, and he had read two sets of Encyclopedia Britannica.
This knowledge turned him into a “living encyclopedia”.
Once he was playing outside with his buddy. As the sky gradually dimmed, the buddy started running home because they were afraid of darkness.
This makes Musk very incomprehensible. He blurted out and said: Don’t worry, darkness is just because there is no light, no visible light of 400-700 nanometers.
The little friend obviously couldn’t understand what Musk was saying.
Another time, he and his brother and sister were playing in the yard. The sister looked at the moon in the sky and asked curiously, “How far is the moon from us?”
Musk replied: “238855 miles (384400 kilometers) from us”. Then, he added: Of course, this is the average, the specific number also depends on your position. “
△ Musk (left) and brother and sister
At this time, Musk was still in elementary school, but his knowledge was already very rich. Whenever someone else has a question, they will always say, “Go and ask the genius kid (Musk).”
He knows not only astronomical knowledge, but also chemical knowledge, including how gunpowder is made, how to produce huge explosive power, etc., so he can guarantee safety from “homemade explosives”.
It all benefits from his reading habits. As an adult, Musk has always maintained the habit of reading.
On one occasion, he and his company colleagues held a celebration in Las Vegas. Everyone was drinking coffee and chatting, but Musk himself read an obscure little manual there.
This little manual is about Soviet rockets. At that time Musk had created PayPal, Is a successful entrepreneur. But he always has a strong interest in rockets, or space.
· 03 ·
Musk’s space dream
Musk’s space dream also originated as a child. Among the many books he read, his favorite is science fiction.
For example, Isaac Asimov’s “Base” series, Robert Heinlein’s “Stern Moon”, and “Guide to the Galaxy Walk”.
△ Promotional image of the movie “Guide to the Galaxy”
In these science fiction novels, Musk read the protagonist’s experience in participating in the manufacture of the moon landing rocket and the aviation program, which has planted the seeds of the space dream. Thinking.
Many children have had fantasies about space, which is not surprising, but for most people, these fantasies will gradually wear out over time.
But somehow, for Musk, this fantasy has become more and more real. By the time he was 15 years old, he had even regarded human journey in the universe as his mission.
At this time, Musk knew that South Africa was not a country that could help him realize his dreams. The conflicts here are constant. Due to long-term racism, he is facing sanctions from the international community.
Where is the dream land? Musk’s best answer is: America.
In his view, the United States is a land full of opportunities and dreams, so this South African boy is determined to go there.
After several twists and turns, Musk arrived in the United States in his 20s.
He joined a Silicon Valley startup that was touted by the media at that time because there was a group of scientists working on supercapacitors there, which could be used as a revolutionary source of electric and hybrid vehicles.
Musk found it interesting, so he joined as an intern. Here, Musk has a different view of supercapacitors.
He believes that super capacitors can be used to release huge amounts of energy to make the laser arms in Star Wars, which can be used in future science fiction movies.
He believes that this capacitor can also be used on missiles to provide energy to the missile. Here, Musk launched a series of commercial experiments based on capacitors.
The difference between Musk and ordinary people is that Musk has many dreams, but he never daydreams.
Because I know how to combine my dreams with commercialization.
· 04 ·
Musk’s business road
According to the plan, Musk originally planned to go to Stanford University to study for a Ph.D. in materials science and physics to advance the work on supercapacitors.
But the story did not follow this direction. Musk spent two days at Stanford University before dropping out and starting a business.
He didn’t directly choose the space field, because as a fledgling kid, he couldn’t figure out how to make money from it.
So he chose to devote himself to the Internet field, which is not only favored by capital, but also an area that Musk has always been interested in.
Musk’s initial exploration of the Internet was completed with his brother. They co-founded a website called Yellow Pages (Zip2).
△ Musk (right) and younger brother (left), mother (middle)
This site is a bit similar to the combined version of “Gold Map” and “Public Review”. You can use this site to search for nearby businesses on the map.
The company was later acquired by computer manufacturer Compaq for $307 million.
After that, Musk founded another financial company called X.com. He invested almost all the money he earned from Zip2 into X.com.
In the eyes of people at that time, Musk was crazy, even putting all his property into a somewhat unreliable project similar to online banking. Even his partner said that Musk’s willingness to take personal risks has reached a level of madness.
People who choose this approach will either be successful or have nothing in the end.
And Musk belongs to the former, X.com is the predecessor of PayPal, PayPal was later acquired by eBay for $1.5 billion, which happened in 2002At the time of the collapse of the foam, the entire technology industry was in a quagmire of severe decline, and even survival became a problem.
PayPal was sold to eBay at a high price and became a winner in troubled times. Musk also made a net profit of $250 million.
△ Musk founded PayPal
Although Musk made a huge fortune from it, his ending at PayPal was not perfect.
At that time, PayPal’s scale expanded rapidly, and there was a problem of cyber fraud. Because Musk did not handle it well, the board of directors doubted his ability.
When Musk was on his honeymoon, board members pushed him out of the CEO position.
Musk received the news that he was replaced on the plane to the resort. It was a honeymoon that was postponed by nine months, and it was Musk’s first break since starting his business.
But the result was ushered in. Musk said to his wife half-jokingly, “I am no longer a prodigy.”
At this time, Musk felt like he was in a trade show. All the people there worked in the technology industry, and they talked about financing, IPO, and chasing huge salaries all day.
And this kind of life gradually became less attractive to Musk. He made a decision similar to his grandfather. At the peak of his career, his family moved south and moved to Los Angeles.
Los Angeles was chosen because of the world’s top aviation industry. Here, he has many opportunities to get in touch with the space industry.
Musk, who became a billionaire, decided to start pursuing his childhood dreams.
· 05 ·
Re-dream space
Originally, he thought that he would have access to the latest and greatest space exploration technology. But the fact disappointed Musk.
One day, he logged into NASA’s website and wanted to find some detailed plans for the exploration of Mars, but he did not find any relevant content.
At first he thought, God, he may have found the wrong place. But he searched for a long time, and found that there was really nothing, really nothing, no plans and arrangements at all.
Musk thought: “This is crazy”. American institutions, which should have been bold and fearless and had a mission to explore new areas in space, had no interest in Mars exploration.
Prior to this, Musk had always believed that Americans have a spirit of exploration deeply rooted in human nature. Now it seems that this spirit has disappeared, and no one cares about exploring space anymore.
But Musk cares, and he seems to have a sense of mission: not only to fulfill his childhood dream, but also to regain everyone’s enthusiasm for science, conquer the unknown and technological innovation, and explore space.
Musk established his own organization, the Life to Mars Foundation.
He released an event, as long as scientists and authorities can provide a technically feasible plan to send mice to space, he will provide them with 20 million to 30 million US dollars in financial support.
This event did attract many experts, including scientists from NASA and the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, but they did not come up with any good ideas.
Musk is not willing to give up. He is also exploring possible methods. In order to solve the launch problem, he secretly ran to Russia to buy missiles, preparing to be converted into space.
When the Russian expert asked him why he wanted to buy, he replied that it was for the cause of space. In their view, Musk has completely lost his mind to do things.
In the current words, Musk is purely relying on power generation and his own love for space to do something that is unlikely to be achieved.
Russian experts think Musk is too ridiculous, and they don’t think Musk will really pay so much money to buy missiles. He said to Musk a little sarcastically: “Don’t make trouble, kid, you don’t have so much money “.
In the end, this deal was not reached. Musk’s mood fell to the bottom. He originally thought he could bring a tremendous change for all mankind, but now he is back.
Since Musk has been silent for a long time, he suddenly said to his fellow scientists: “Brothers, I think we can build rockets ourselves.”
· 06 ·
“Go for your spring and autumn dream”
Before Musk, many rich people, like him, ambitiously thought that they could conquer space, only to lose their wealth.
For example, Andrew Beal, a financial genius, invested millions of dollars to explore the aviation field, and finally he floated.
So when Musk proposed this plan, almost everyone was not optimistic about him, including those scientists and engineers, and they thought: “Be your big dream.”
But Musk is serious. He took out a table that details the cost of building, assembling and launching a rocket. It also involves rocket performance characteristics, which are very detailed.
It turned out that in the past few months, Musk has been studying the aerospace industry and the principles behind it. He looked at the “Principles of Rocket Propulsion”, “Basics of Celestial Dynamics”, “Gas Turbines and Rocket Propulsion”. Various professional books including Aerodynamics.
Like his childhood, he worked tirelessly to absorb the knowledge in it. Finally, he found that “making rockets by himself” was feasible.
Despite this, most people in the space are not convinced that Musk can do this. In their eyes, Musk was a rich maniac, who could have spent more than 20 million US dollars, but now he has to spend several hundred million US dollars, and the final result is nothing like the predecessors: burn all the money. Too.
Musk doesn’t care what they think. Since he believes this is feasible, he is determined to do it. Musk also does not need these unsatisfactory experts. He eliminated all those who sang the opposite, leaving only a group of like-minded elite engineers.
Musk brought them together and founded a space exploration technology company, SpaceX.
Here, Musk started building rockets. Unlike the large rockets launched by Boeing, the Russians and other countries, Musk made rocketsIt will not carry large satellites, but will become an emerging rocket with a smaller payload.
Because of this, the company’s cost of each launch can be reduced and the frequency of launches can be increased. Only in this way can we truly enter the space industry. This is Musk’s ultimate fantasy of space-human beings can become trans-planetary species.
Although this sounds like a good concept, it is still unknown whether a private company can successfully manufacture rockets.
Rocket launching is not only a very money-burning job. This work usually requires government financial support, and it is also a very strict job with technical requirements.
If you go online to search for “rocket explosion” videos, you can see thousands of launch accidents in the United States and the former Soviet Union. From 1957 to 1966, the United States alone tried to launch more than 400 rockets, of which about 100 exploded.
For such an extremely challenging job, SpaceX successfully completed it. In 2003, they launched a rocket, which was a miracle just 15 months after SpaceX was founded.
△ SpaceX’s previous rocket launch sites
Since then, SpaceX has staged countless miracles. It has changed from the laughing stock of the aviation industry to one of the most stable operators.
SpaceX launches rockets almost every month in order to replenish the International Space Station or to carry satellites for a certain country.
And Musk’s original vision was realized, and people regained their enthusiasm for science, unknown and space.
In the past 10 years, the U.S. satellite manufacturing, satellite-related services, and rocket launch services market has exploded. From more than 60 billion U.S. dollars per year to more than 200 billion U.S. dollars.
Not long ago, Musk was interviewed by American media. He said in the interview: There are still fewer people like Buffett.
He said this because he thinks that Buffett’s work is very important, but it is too boring. Most of the time he is doing capital allocation, reading annual reports and accounting statements.
And he wants to do something interesting.
Since he dropped out of school and started his own business, he has been immersed in the three areas he wants to go to: Internet, renewable energy and space. In Musk’s view, these three areas will profoundly affect the future development of mankind.
At present, Musk has not only set foot in these three fields, but also seems to be doingAll are good.
There are PayPal in the Internet field, SpaceX in the space field, and Sun City in the renewable energy field. This is currently the largest supplier of commercial solar panels, and of course, the famous Tesla.
However, despite Musk’s great commercial success, he clearly knows what to do to create commercial value, but he is not as good as fame and wealth.
He even said in an interview with the media: Billionaire has become a derogatory term, and it doesn’t make sense to ask for so much money.
He feels that he should invest his earned money in projects he likes. Now, he has a firm goal: immigration to Mars, he must go all out to make it a reality.
Musk said: “It must be an interesting thing to die on Mars.”
As mentioned in the previous article: An approach like Musk is either a big success or nothing at the end.
I don’t know what Musk’s final result will be, but I hope it’s the former, and the world needs adventurers like Musk.