Space Exploration Technologies Corporation

Space Exploration Technologies Corporation



SHOOTING THE MOON
Internet multimillionaire Elon Musk bets his entire fortune developing a subcompact rocket that could make outer space as accessible as cyberspace.

Discover
September 2005
By Brad Lemley

Can a rocket be cute?

.....

Elon Musk is 34 years old, worth hundreds of millions, owns two jets, and even has straight teeth, so it’s quite natural to hate him. Unfortunately, in person he turns out to be a chatty, self-deprecating fellow who’s virtually impossible to dislike. Born in South Africa, he has a not-quite-British accent and an arid wit: “When people ask me why I started a rocket company, I say, ‘I was trying to learn how to turn a large fortune into a small one.’ ”

If he succeeds, poverty won’t be a new experience. At age 17, he left home to enroll at Queen’s University in Kingston, Ontario, subsisting on less than $1 a day—he calls it a forced experiment in avoiding scurvy—before landing a scholarship and earning an undergraduate physics degree at the University of Pennsylvania. Enrolled in a doctorate program at Stanford University, he dropped out after just two days to start a media-services software company called Zip2 in 1995, which he sold in 1999. He then cofounded PayPal, the world’s leading electronic payment system, and sold it to online auctioneer eBay in 2002. As a major shareholder in both ventures, his resulting net worth has been estimated at $324 million. Asked if the figure is correct, he shrugs: “That depends on how you value SpaceX.” .....

"矽天"的故事-Silicon Sky vs. Silicon Valley

因Jennifer Campbell的介紹，知道Orbital出了一本介紹Orbital的書 ，書名叫﹕『Silicon Sky - How one small start-up went over the top to beat the big boys into satellite heaven』，作者為Gary Dorsey,1999 年版。我在Amazon買了此書(二手價只要2.5美金，運費則要5元)。看了前後幾頁，瞭解這位曾被命名為商業衛星界的比爾‧蓋茲 - 大衛‧湯姆生創辦Orbital公司的精彩故事。
註解﹕Dean說他是故事中偷走Orbocomm 微衛星元件的那位Microlab工程師。﹕–)

雪景

兩年前的日記：

今 天早上突然下起雪來，由於在台北好市多買了一部2M的數位相機，就趁機拍下這一個鏡頭。此為，我站在住的公寓(Cascade Overlook Apartment)陽台外照的相；我住的房子與後面背景的房子一樣。一面看去是三樓(Apt #302)；另一邊看去是二樓。照片人物身體下方的部分因為小腹凸凸，被我技巧性的cut掉，才有這樣一副雄糾糾、氣昂昂的英姿。此照片可以百年留存。 ;-)

Rubber Boat