Musk, Elon – Page 9 – artdiamondblog.com

Our Cups Will Runneth Over If We Choose Entrepreneurship, Imagination, Will and Optimism

Source of book image: http://www.abundancethebook.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/cover-NYTimes-3d-500.jpg?139d23

(p. 18) in Silicon Valley, where the locals tend to be too busy starting companies to wallow in gloom, Peter Diamandis has stood out as one of the more striking optimists. Several years ago, Diamandis founded the X Prize Foundation, which rewards entrepreneurs with cash for achieving difficult goals, like putting a reusable spaceship into flight on a limited budget. More recently he helped start Singularity University, an academic program that convenes several weeks a year in the Valley and educates business leaders about the “disruptive” — i.e., phenomenally innovative — technological changes Diamandis is anticipating. To be sure, Diamandis is both very bright (he studied molecular biology and aerospace engineering at M.I.T. before getting an M.D. at Harvard) and well informed. Moreover, he’s not the kind of optimist who will merely see the glass as half full. He’ll give you dozens of reasons, some highly technical, why it’s half full. Then he’ll explain that your cognitive biases are tricking you into seeing the glass of water in a negative light, and cart out the research of acclaimed psychologists like Daniel Kahneman to prove his point. Finally he may suggest you stop fretting: new technologies will soon fill the glass up anyway. Indeed, they are likely to overfill it.
. . .
(p. 19) Throughout the book Diamandis . . . offers small groups of driven entrepreneurs as a kind of Leatherman solution to the world’s problems. It’s true that plenty of insurgents are doing impressive things out there — Elon Musk’s Tesla Motors, which helped jump-start the world’s electric car industry, is a good example.
. . .
. . . , there’s a significant idea embedded within “Abundance”: We should remain aware, as writers like Jared Diamond have likewise told us, that societies can choose their own future, and thus their own fate. In that spirit Diamandis and Kotler put forth a range of possible goals we may achieve if we have the imagination and the will. A little optimism wouldn’t hurt, either.

For the full review, see:
JON GERTNER. “Plenty to Go Around.” The New York Times Book Review (Sun., April 1, 2012): 18 & 19.
(Note: ellipses added.)
(Note: the online version of the review has the date March 30, 2012.)

The book under review is:
Diamandis, Peter H., and Steven Kotler. Abundance: The Future Is Better Than You Think. New York: Free Press, 2012.

Proof of Concept: “A Determined Entrepreneur Can Start a Rocket Company from Scratch”

‘The Falcon 9 rocket seen in a time-exposure photograph during liftoff.” Source of caption and photo: online version of the NYT article quoted and cited below.

(p. A13) CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. — He does not have the name recognition of some other space entrepreneurs, people like Richard Branson, the founder of the Virgin empire, or Paul Allen of Microsoft fame, or Jeff Bezos, the Amazon.com billionaire.

That will probably change if things keep going his way. Elon Musk, a computer prodigy and serial entrepreneur whose ambitions include solving the world’s energy needs and colonizing the solar system, was the man of the hour — or of 3:44 a.m. Tuesday, Eastern time — when the rocket ship built by his company, SpaceX, lifted off gracefully in a nighttime launching and arced off in a streak of light amid loud applause.
. . .
If all goes as planned, his unmanned Dragon capsule, lifted into orbit by his Falcon 9 rocket, will berth at the International Space Station on Friday bearing a modest cargo: 162 meal packets (45 of them low-sodium), a laptop computer, a change of clothes for the station astronauts and 15 student experiments.
Far more important than the supplies is the proof of concept. Mr. Musk is trying to show the world that a determined entrepreneur can start a rocket company from scratch and, a decade later, end up doing a job that has until now been the exclusive province of federal governments.
. . .
Just four years ago, SpaceX went through a near-death experience. The first three launchings of the company’s small Falcon 1 rocket failed. One more failure, Mr. Musk said, and he would have run out of money. As he went through a divorce from his first wife, with whom he has five sons, he had to borrow money from friends.
The fourth launching succeeded. Late in 2008, NASA awarded SpaceX the cargo contract. The first two Falcon 9 launchings, in 2010, also succeeded.
Early Tuesday morning, the success streak continued. As the countdown clock hit zero, the engines remained ignited. Less than 10 minutes later, the Dragon was in orbit. It then aced several other early tasks like the deployment of solar arrays and navigational sensors and the testing of GPS equipment.
“Anything could have gone wrong,” Mr. Musk said. “And everything went right, fortunately.”

For the full story, see:
KENNETH CHANG. “Big Day for Entrepreneur Who Promises More.” The New York Times (Weds., May 23, 2012): A13.
(Note: ellipses added.)
(Note: the online version of the story is dated May 22, 2012, and has the title “Big Day for a Space Entrepreneur Promising More.”)

“Elon Musk.” Source of caption and photo: online version of the NYT article quoted and cited above.

Paul Allen Uses Microsoft Profits for Bold Private Space Project

Source of graphic: online version of the WSJ article quoted and cited below.

(p. B1) Microsoft Corp. co-founder Paul Allen indicated he is prepared to commit $200 million or more of his wealth to build the world’s largest airplane as a mobile platform for launching satellites at low cost, which he believes could transform the space industry.

Announced Tuesday, the novel, high-risk project conceived by renowned aerospace designer Burt Rutan seeks to combine engines, landing gears and other parts removed from old Boeing 747 jets with a newly created composite craft from Mr. Rutan and a powerful rocket to be built by a company run by Internet billionaire and commercial-space pioneer Elon Musk.
Dubbed Stratolaunch and funded by one of Mr. Allen’s closely held entities, the venture seeks to meld decades-old airplane technology with cutting-edge booster-rocket designs in an unprecedented way to assemble a hybrid that would offer the first totally privately funded space transportation system.

For the full story, see:
ANDY PASZTOR And DIONNE SEARCEY. “Paul Allen, Supersizing Space Flight; Billionaire’s Novel Vision Has Wingspan Wider Than a Football Field, Weighs 1.2 Million Pounds.” The Wall Street Journal (Weds., December 5, 2011): B1 & B5.

Private Money Can Top Government Money in Space, as in IT

Lots of people are building new IT companies. You can start a company and sell it to Yahoo! or Google in a couple of years. But so can anyone else. Aerospace is different. To paraphrase John F. Kennedy in 1962: We choose to go to the moon not because it’s easy, but because it’s hard.

That’s why, as a long-time investor in IT and Internet start-ups, I’m now spending more and more time on private aviation and commercial space start-ups. I’m trailing an illustrius crew of IT pioneers: Elon Musk (Space-X, rockets, formerly with PayPal), Vern Raburn (Eclipse Aviation, very light jets, formerly at Microsoft, Symantec and Lotus), Jeff Bezos (Blue Origin, rockets, and still at Amazon, too!), Jeff Greason (XCOR, rockets and formerly with Intel) and Ed Iacobucci (DayJet, air taxi operator, and founder of Citrix).

. . .

On the space side, there’s a . . . strong parallel with the world of IT. The establishment in "space" is the government and especially the military, just as it once was (along with academia) for the Internet. I remember the days when commerce on the Internet was considered sleazy—but look at the innovations and productivity it unleashed.

In the same way, the current priests of space are dismayed by the privately funded space start-ups—unsafe, sleazy, frivolous. Imagine: Ads on the side of a rocket ship! Well, why not, if it helps pay for the fuel… and the R&D that designed the thing?

For the full commentary, see:

ESTHER DYSON "New Horizons for the Intrepid VC." The Wall Street Journal (Tues., March 20, 2007): A19.

(Note: ellipses added, except for the ellipsis following the word "fuel" which was in the original.)

Entrepreneur’s $100 Million Rocket Destroyed

Lesson one: entreprepreneurship is risky, and often fails. Lesson two: when an entreprepreneur’s rocket is destroyed, his $100 million goes up in smoke; when NASA’s rocket is destroyed, your $100 million goes up in smoke.

Government and industry efforts to develop innovative, less costly rockets suffered a high-profile setback Friday, when the initial flight of a satellite launcher bankrolled by outspoken entrepreneur Elon Musk ended in failure.

After Mr. Musk spent nearly four years and well over $100 million of his personal fortune to create a rocket company from scratch, his Falcon project became the best-known and most aggressive entrant in the fledgling small-rocket segment. But according to preliminary assessments, a fuel leak and resulting fire during last week’s inaugural launch shut down the main engines less than 30 seconds after blastoff from a Pacific atoll. The rocket and a research satellite built by Air Force Academy students were destroyed.

For the full story, see:

Pasztor, Andy. "Entrepreneur’s Rocket Suffers Setback During Maiden Launch." Wall Street Journal (Monday, March 27, 2006): A14.

Disruptive Innovation Threatens Boeing and Lockheed?

Source of table: online version of WSJ article cited below.

EL SEGUNDO, Calif. — Maverick entrepreneur Elon Musk, who says he is prepared to spend nearly $200 million of his personal fortune creating a family of low-cost, reusable rockets, recently landed an unexpected customer: the U.S. intelligence community.
Mr. Musk and his fledgling company, closely held Space Exploration Technologies Corp., for years worked on advanced technologies and less-expensive manufacturing concepts to build small rockets capable of launching commercial or government satellites weighing around 1,000 pounds.
But the new contract for a single, classified launch — shrouded in such secrecy that neither the spy agency nor specific type of satellite was identified — envisions construction of a massive rocket by Mr. Musk’s company, known as SpaceX. The launch vehicle is slated to be comparable to the largest, most powerful models built by Boeing Co. and Lockheed Martin Corp., but costing a fraction of the prices charged by the rocket-industry leaders
. . .
Mr. Musk doesn’t minimize the challenge of trying to win more government business while criticizing government procurement practices. “I think it’s extremely risky,” he says of his overall strategy, “but we’ve got to fight for our right to win customers.” If development of simpler, less-costly rocket alternatives is left to major defense contractors, he argues, “I can assure you it will never, never happen.”
. . .
In spite of skepticism and criticism of SpaceX, industry leaders are keeping a wary eye on Mr. Musk, with some vowing stepped-up competition against the industry newcomer.
Tom Marsh, a senior Lockheed Martin space official, told a space conference last month that his company “absolutely intends to pursue, and to pursue vigorously” the market for smaller rockets initially targeted by SpaceX.

ANDY PASZTOR. “For Rocket Start-Up, Sky’s the Limit; Surprise Contract Boosts SpaceX as It Competes With Boeing, Lockheed.” THE WALL STREET JOURNAL (Thurs., September 15, 2005): B6.