No great undertaking will be smooth sailing at the beginning, no matter how dazzling it will be, at least in the first few steps, nine deaths.
Musk and his SpaceX, too, have had extremely difficult times.
Musk with his SpaceX
In 2001, Musk was squeezed out of X.com, and X.com was officially renamed PayPal.
After losing control of the business he founded, Musk moved to Los Angeles. Musk, who couldn't be idle at all, picked up his childhood dream, space travel, his sea of stars, and began to study books about rockets and space.
Los Angeles is a fertile space land, where the U.S. military, NASA and many companies carry out rocket manufacturing and space experiments, and many space exploration enthusiasts gather here to discuss everything about outer space.
Here, Musk joined the "Mars Society" to discuss the possibility of colonizing Mars with a group of people who share the same hobbies and pursuits. Musk has made extensive friends, looked for potential partners, accumulated extensive contacts, and established good relationships with some of the top talents in the space industry and NASA. Unfortunately, the Mars Society could not support his ambition to go to Mars.
Musk is not Ye Gong Haolong, just talk about it, what really surpasses other entrepreneurs is that he is extremely focused on what he loves and will do whatever it takes to achieve his dreams.
Musk is not only a top student, but also a business genius. With his accumulated connections, Musk, who has never followed the crowd, chose to set up his own Mars Life Foundation and invited top talents in the aerospace industry to participate in his own forum activities. In the process of continuous communication, Musk met the great director Cameron and Griffin, who has not yet become NASA administrator. Not only that, but also included the aerospace master Griffin under his command and became Musk's chief military division in the aerospace industry. This relationship with NASA administrators and engineers helped him get out of difficult situations in future rocket experiments and crises.
Obama and Musk
Speaking of which, everyone should understand the reasons why Musk can continue to get orders from NASA, there are big people behind people, and even hit the famous Lockheed Martin Company and the blue origin of the world's richest man Bezos several times.
As the discussion of interstellar travel and colonization of Mars deepened, Musk and a group of experts finally formulated a project called "Martian Oasis", which plans to build growth chambers on Mars, cultivate plants, and create conditions for colonizing Mars. It is the Mars Oasis Program that attracts a group of young people and experts and scholars interested in Mars to join Musk's team and make unremitting efforts to achieve the goal.
Enthusiasm and planning are far from solving the problem of colonizing Mars.
A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step, not to mention the crazy plan of an unprecedented person to land on Mars. Making a plan is only the first step of the project, and the next 99 steps require a lot of money, talent and technical support.
The second step of the plan, how can I go to Mars?
So far, there is only one way, and that is to use rockets to send people and things up.
Where to find rockets? This is another big problem.
At first, Musk searched all the military and private rocket companies in the United States and Russia, but the price was too expensive, and his two hundred million dollars were far from enough to burn. So Maskra ran around with Griffin, even three times to Russia, hoping to buy several ballistic missiles and modify them to make rockets. After several bargains with Russian rocket companies, Musk finally hit the southern wall and understood a truth, it is better to rely on people than on himself.
NASA Administrator Griffin
If it were an ordinary person, he might dismiss the idea of going to Mars here, but Musk is Musk, who has never been speechless, and his advantage continues to create miracles for him.
A genius idea came to his head, he wanted to build his own rocket, and he wanted to build the lowest cost rocket in the world. Musk is a real genius, and in just a few months of running around to buy rockets, he has taught himself about rockets, celestial dynamics and rocket propulsion. And there is a list of rockets that need to be built, and the price is still the lowest in the world. This move shocked everyone.
Musk continues to grow his team, absorbing many talented players for his use. In June 2002, SpaceX was quietly established, and no one could have predicted that this little-known small company would later turn the big table in the world's aerospace industry, turn the major space powers to the ground, and usher in a new era of low-cost rocket launch and recovery.
SpaceX has targeted small satellite launches from the beginning, wanting to get a piece of the low-end satellite launch market so as to be self-sufficient and survive first.
Musk is a madman, just do what he says, and work fast. He set an extremely crazy timeline for his rocket launch project. According to SpaceX's original proposal, they will start manufacturing the first two rocket thrusters in May 2003, produce rocket bodies next month, complete assembly tests next month, prepare the launch pad next month, conduct the first launch in November, and finally land on Mars in 2010, reducing the cost of rocket launches from $30 million to $6.9 million per launch. This is a cross-border dimensionality reduction strike.
Newborn calves are not afraid of tigers, and this phrase is simply appropriate for new entrepreneurs. A layman, Musk, who has no experience in the aerospace industry, actually formulated a crazy Great Leap Forward plan for himself and his team, hoping to catch up with the decades of accumulation of many large companies and space powers in half a year.
Crazy is not enough to describe Musk, this is an extreme person, extremely extreme about his goals and requirements. But he is still too young, and cross-border dimensionality reduction strikes require absolute strength.
It's not just Musk who is crazy, but a large number of space enthusiasts and the U.S. military, who want to launch satellites into space cheaply and quickly, and what is more exaggerated than Musk's Great Leap Forward is that they actually believe Musk's plan. I have to say that Musk is really a marketing master, a master of fooling, and even the military can be fooled. The Yankees are really jaw-dropping!
However, Musk overestimated the strength of his team, and building rockets and landing on Mars did not happen overnight.
This will be a long road, and it will be through nine nine eighty-one difficulties and nine deaths.
Musk intends to build rockets, and many billionaires and countless scientists have already gone to follow him, spending a lot of money and time, and the final results are mostly nothing.
The result is obvious, Musk did not create a miracle in a short period of time, breaking through the rocket curse. It has been 21 years since the establishment of SpaceX, although the company has made great progress, created many new technologies, and faintly led the world's aerospace trend, but the landing on Mars is far from being achieved.
I don't know if Musk was drawing a pie when he made this plan or really thought it could be done (welcome to discuss in the comment area).
It wasn't until 6 years after its founding that SpaceX really managed to launch its first rocket.
Falcon rocket
The rocket, called Falcon 1, is Musk's own name, and he hopes that this rocket can create miracles and create a new future like the Millennium Falcon in Star Wars.
Falcon 1 was SpaceX's debut, but its development process was extremely difficult, almost bankrupting Musk. At first, Musk planned to use his previous experience in building rockets to purchase various parts and assemble them, but the cost was relatively expensive. When a variety of solutions could not reduce costs, Musk once again shocked everyone, proposed that it was better to rely on people than on himself, and decided to independently develop all the parts and technologies of the Falcon rocket.
It was a great, difficult and wise decision that opened up a wide space for SpaceX's growth. This point should also be the key to Musk's dazzling success in many areas.
After making a plan, choosing a name, and the rest is to go all out, Musk continues to recruit top talents from major companies and universities, and even personally calls the top students in the school to recruit them to join his team. On the other hand, his team has built a space iron army, the spirit of unity is strength to the fullest, in the following countless days, his aerospace iron army overcame countless difficulties, non-stop and unremitting to carry out all the independent research and development of rockets, for the rise of SpaceX set up a sweat and horse credit.
This should also be Musk's way of employing people, and he must have his own Janissaries.
From rocket engines, turbopumps, cryogenic tank structures, arrow bodies, avionics, guidance and control, and even a nut are all independently developed. This steel team is really enough to surpass any hardworking entrepreneurial team in history. Many times work 20 hours a day, compared to our 996 blessings, Musk's 206 (20 hours a day, 6 days a week) is even more inhumane. But Musk's team is more voluntary, each member is personally selected by Musk, everyone has passion and dreams, not willing to waste even a minute, can't wait to plunge into this unprecedented scientific research battlefield, completely treat this cause as their own life. Daily life is a three-point line, R&D-experiment-summary-sleep-R&D-experiment-summary-sleep, unite together regardless of you and me, and constantly overcome every insurmountable challenge.
Despite such hard work and desperation, thousands of failures followed, success was lost, every test shot ended in failure, and every blow was enough to be fatal.
The first Falcon 1 launch failed in 2006. Lost contact after the second launch in 2007. It disappeared after a third launch in 2008.
The fatal thing is not only a major mental blow, but also a financial inability to sustain it. How much money a start-up team burns, if you can't understand this concept, please look at the story of Boss Xu Jiayin and Boss Jia Yueting Jia investing in electric vehicles, billions of dollars smashed in, or not made out.
Musk put all his $200 million worth into it, and even secretly wiped his tears after receiving several failures. If not crazy, who would have invested his entire net worth of $200 million (compared to $200 million in 2002) into an unknown venture capital.
This is perhaps the biggest merit of Musk's success, not one.
Unfortunately, the world is bustling, coming and going, everyone is crazy for money, but only a very few people are crazy about dreams. For the sake of money, most of them died and died; For the sake of dreams, many go alone.
This is crucial, and understanding this leads to why success is always a minority.
Although the food and grass are not enough to last a few months, on the surface, Musk has always been calm and optimistic, even if he is about to go bankrupt, he does not reveal a trace of sadness, and even tells his team that the work should be perfect, money, not a problem.
Musk is also a hero!
Let me ask, is there any reason why such a steel legion will not succeed?
Rocket recovery
The emperor pays off. Finally, after more than 2,600 days and nights of tireless fighting, on September 28, 2008, the Falcon 1 rocket shot through the sky from Kwajalein Atoll in the western Pacific, achieving its first success since the company's founding.
The launch validated the stability of the Falcon 1 launch system and paved the way for the company's goal of launching a low-cost commercial rocket, making SpaceX the world's first privately held company to successfully launch a launch vehicle and winning NASA's $1.6 billion contract in December of that year.
On July 14, 2009, Falcon 1 successfully launched a Malaysian satellite from the Marshall Islands in the Pacific Ocean into a predetermined orbit, Musk and his SpaceX team ushered in the first comprehensive victory, this successful launch of the satellite marked the first step in the commercial launch of space exploration technology.
Musk and his SpaceX team finally walked through the long dark night and ushered in the dawn.
SpaceX's success also proves our old adage, where there is a will, there is a way, and the hard work is not disappointed.
I have to admire the old horse! In this world, there is no sea of stars that you cannot conquer!
You are not the richest man, who is the richest man! You don't go to Mars, who goes to Mars!
Having said that, SpaceX's success is not overnight, there are many spiritual experiences that are worth learning from, and we must talk about and use it, and take the SpaceX team's pragmatism, beyond innovation, sincere cooperation, hard work, and never give up spirit for my use, our cutting-edge technology will surely surpass the world.
The success of Falcon 1 is only the second step in the plan, and the difficulties and dangers of SpaceX and Musk's Martian Oasis have just begun. The story behind it, and listen to the next breakdown.
Friends who see this article, if you have any ideas, welcome to continue the discussion in the comment area.
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