[Depth] SpaceX, which has been defeated and fought repeatedly, reveals Musk and the scientific research force behind him
[Global Times Special Correspondent in the United States Zheng Ke, Global Times reporter Gu Di Chen Xin] Editor’s note: November 15th is the day when NASA chanted "Opening a new era of manned spaceflight"-American space exploration technology The company's (SpaceX) manned "Dragon" spacecraft carried four astronauts into the air and rushed to the International Space Station.
This is SpaceX's first official commercial manned launch, and it also enables the United States to truly gain the ability to travel freely into space after the space shuttle is retired.
SpaceX once again aroused widespread attention from international public opinion about its strength in scientific research-although its founder Musk is usually "attractive" enough, he is also known as the real "Iron Man" as the CEO of Tesla.
As the core and soul of the company, Musk has gathered a group of technical elites around him, as described by foreign media. His team’s quick response speed, the enthusiasm of all staff to participate in research and development discussions, and the day and night immersed in research have achieved repeated defeats. SpaceX.
However, some analysts said that the company's achievements today cannot be separated from the all-round support of the US government.
"Those who can work with Musk are his kind"
Speaking of SpaceX's success, I have to mention Tom Mueller, Chief Technology Officer of its Propulsion Department, who is the company's No. 1 employee.
Mueller worked for the famous American Thompson-Lamo Wooldridge Company (TRW) for 15 years.
TRW, which conducts business in aerospace, electronics, automobiles and other fields, has developed many spacecraft. The most famous product is the landing power system of the Apollo moon landing spacecraft.
The American "Popular Mechanics" magazine website once stated that before meeting Musk, Muller gradually felt that many of his ideas about engine design had no room for TRW's daily work.
In order to satisfy his "innovative inspiration", he began to manufacture his own engines, install them on the aircraft fuselage, and start them in the Mojave Desert with other members of the "Reaction Research Club" (RSS).
RSS is the longest-established amateur rocket club in the United States. Many of its members are employees of aerospace companies, and they meet regularly in Los Angeles.
Starting in the second half of 2001, Mueller used his own workday evenings and weekends to develop liquid-fuel rocket engines, first in his garage and later in a friend's warehouse.
The engine was the largest amateur liquid fuel rocket engine in the world at that time, weighing 80 pounds and capable of producing 13,000 pounds of thrust.
In early 2002, Mueller met Musk in this warehouse. The latter asked a simple question after looking at the engine: "Can you build something bigger than this?" After that, Mueller joined SpaceX.
It is said that Musk had searched many people's materials to find rocket designers, and he admired Mueller's experience in manufacturing and testing rocket engines and his past work experience.
During the TRW, Muller presided over the development of the TR-106 engine, which is a super-high thrust, low-cost liquid oxygen liquid hydrogen engine.
Under the leadership of Mueller, the "Merlin" rocket engine was tested for the first time in October 2003, but it failed. After 15 months of improvement, the test was successful.
The "Merlin" engine is used in the "Falcon 1", "Falcon 9" and "Falcon" heavy launch vehicles. It has extremely high reliability. As of August this year, the latest version of the "Merlin" 1D has maintained more than 930 times. A record of no accidents during the flight.
"TRW is a huge company with only a small department," Mueller once told the media, "but here, I am the king."
Huang Zhicheng, a senior researcher at the China Yuanwang Think Tank, told the Global Times that at present, SpaceX President Gwen Shotwell is Musk’s most powerful assistant. Her solid foundation in aerospace engineering and female management and coordination skills enable Musk to have More time to think about technical issues.
The Los Angeles Times said that Shotwell worked at the Aerospace Corporation’s El Segundo Research Center for 10 years, during which time she wrote dozens of papers on small spacecraft concept design, space shuttle integration and re-engineering. Into various topics such as aircraft operational risks.
In 1998, she moved to the space systems department of a low-cost rocket manufacturer as the director.
In 2002, after just a few minutes of conversation, Musk decided to give Shotwell the position of vice president of business development, who became SpaceX's 11th employee.
Shotwell was the key figure who saved SpaceX from the brink of bankruptcy.
In August 2008, after SpaceX failed the third test flight of the "Falcon 1" carrier rocket, Musk faced collapse.
At that time, Shotwell explained to customers that their launch was successful and all they had to do was to repair a Falcon 1 and spend some time in the separation of the first and second rockets.
In the following September, the experiment was successful, and in December, SpaceX, which was on the verge of life and death, won the NASA contract.
After that, Musk promoted Shotwell to the company's president and chief operating officer.
"Without her, we couldn't do what we are doing now." Musk once commented.
There are also a group of technical elites who have left SpaceX, such as the founding member of the company, Chris Thompson, the structural designer who hosted the "Hercules" rocket at McDonnell Douglas Flight Company; and the head of Delta rocket testing at Boeing for 15 years M Busa, he is considered to be a rocket tester in the forefront of the world; and Jinnah Hussein, who jumped to Boeing this year, is the vice president of software engineering at SpaceX, and also served as Tesla’s autopilot software Vice President of Engineering.
According to US technology website TechCrunch, Hussein once led the launch control software development projects of "Falcon", "Heavy Falcon", and "Crew Dragon" aircraft. These work supported SpaceX's 40 rocket launches and 10 "Dragon" launches. "Spacecraft missions and 24 successful landings.
For Musk, Hussein, who only joined the company in 2014, has made a huge contribution. The experience between Tesla and SpaceX reflects his super stress resistance.
Lu Qi, a Chinese data analyst who works at PayPal, is a fan of Musk.
He told the "Global Times" reporter: "As far as I know, Musk requires employees to work in a round-the-clock mode. This workaholic hopes that his subordinates can complete research and development work with the same efficiency as him. Calculated in seconds. Because of this, the people who can work with Musk are his kind. In addition to strong professional skills, they also have the passion to burn their lives for dreams. Maybe some people think they are weird, but only this Strength can withstand the blow of failure and the risk of breaking the capital chain."
According to media reports, Musk appreciates the fighting spirit of young people. Almost all ordinary engineers working for SpaceX are young men who have just graduated from school.
He often goes to top universities to personally inquire about the children with the best grades, and even calls them to send out an invitation to "realize dreams together".
According to the US CNBC website, SpaceX has approximately 8,000 employees.
"Trial and error are very important"
"Since SpaceX was founded in June 2002, Musk has always been the core and soul of the company, both at the management and technical levels." Huang Zhicheng told the "Global Times" reporter that the company's success in innovation must first be attributed to Musk's first principles thinking.
This concept was first proposed by Aristotle. He believed that there is a first principle in any system, that is, a basic proposition or hypothesis that cannot be omitted or violated.
Musk once said that in life, people always tend to compare and follow what others have done or are doing. "The result of such development can only produce small iterative changes."
In his view, the world should be viewed from the perspective of physics, that is, to see the essence of things.
Huang Zhicheng said that Musk's first-principles thinking can be understood as the simplest, that is, the most reliable and cheapest, so the "Falcon" heavy launch vehicle uses 27 identical "Merlin" engines.
"Secondly, SpaceX itself has the Silicon Valley spirit and Internet genes, which injects new vitality into the aerospace system engineering field." Huang Zhicheng analyzed that traditional aerospace system engineering advocates exposing as many risks as possible in the preliminary design to reduce the cost of errors. Therefore, a lot of time and energy will be invested in the early design stage.
SpaceX puts more emphasis on the experience generated after each complete iteration. The cost of completing multiple "design, development, and testing" processes has been significantly lower than in the last century, and the experience brought by each complete iteration is actually It means reducing the overall cost of the project.
"Trial and error is one of the basic principles that Silicon Valley encourages innovation. Here, new companies are born every day, and countless companies go bankrupt, but it is in this continuous tempering that Apple, Google, Facebook, etc. Technology giants." Nana, who is starting a business in Silicon Valley, told a reporter from the Global Times.
Raymond Simonis, who has left SpaceX, once said, "Trial and error are very important. You may not get a definite answer if you don't understand the core problem... But a rough test tells you: I am closer to the answer."
SpaceX's success is based on repeated defeats and repeated defeats.
In March 2006, SpaceX launched the rocket "Falcon 1" for the first time. 25 seconds after it was fired, the rocket, which had accumulated many years of hard work, hit the launch site; the second launch a year later persisted for a long time. It took a little longer—about 5 minutes after liftoff, the rocket burned and exploded; in August and September 2008, SpaceX conducted two consecutive rocket "Falcon 1" launch tests, and finally succeeded in the second test launch.
Huang Zhicheng believes that SpaceX's success lies in its use of a flat and intensive management mechanism, allowing employees in each position to work efficiently, and timely information sharing, technology sharing, and personnel collaboration, which simplifies the decision-making and delivery process to the greatest extent.
SpaceX implements a project system led by a vice president and is organized according to project needs and characteristics. Employees in all fields participate equally in technical seminars, design, and development, and give full play to the effectiveness of personnel.
"Without NASA, there might be no SpaceX now"
In Nana's view, Musk's success "is more or less a part of luck," because its development areas happen to be industries supported by the US government.
Dmitry Rogozin, president of the Russian National Aerospace Corporation, said that the Musk team can obtain state funding to inherit NASA's retired space shuttle and receive the agency's top professional talents and scientific research equipment. The resources it consumes are Russian research and development costs Multiples of.
"Without NASA, there might not be the current SpaceX." American writer Ashley Vance recounted in his biography about Musk. From 2006 to 2008, SpaceX experienced three "Falcon 1" rockets. The launch failed.
Despite the fourth success in September 2008, the company was still at risk of bankruptcy at the end of that year. In December, Musk ran out of all the loans he could borrow.
However, in the first two days of Christmas, NASA announced that it had awarded SpaceX a $1.6 billion space station transportation contract, which allowed the latter to continue operations.
In the previous two years, in 2006, SpaceX had obtained NASA's commercial rail transportation service contract.
The BBC stated that in 2010, NASA invested US$50 million in the Obama administration's manned space program. In 2014, SpaceX and Boeing became the only two companies in the project, and they signed related contracts with NASA.
NASA also provides a lot of support for SpaceX's rocket and spacecraft research and development, and has opened part of the Apollo project's technology to support the research and development and testing of the "Falcon" series of rocket engines.
According to the US CNBC website, only for the launch of the manned "Dragon" spacecraft, NASA provided SpaceX with US$3.1 billion for research and development.
In addition, many NASA scientists have joined the company.
Bloomberg said that Bill Gersdenmeier, who recently retired from NASA, started to work as a consultant for SpaceX. Prior to this, he worked on the space shuttle project for 42 years.
Huang Zhicheng told the Global Times that when SpaceX announced the addition of the Astronaut Safety and Mission Assurance Department in 2009, they hired NASA astronaut Kenneth Bowie Sokes as the head of the department and the company's vice president.
Some analysts believe that SpaceX's success also benefits from the highly integrated environment of the US military and civilians.
According to Reuters, in May 2015, the US military issued certification to SpaceX, allowing it to enter the US military launch market, launch military satellites, and perform space missions related to national defense and security.
Since 2016, the company began to cooperate with the US Air Force, which awarded a satellite launch contract of $83 million.
In addition, the U.S. Air Force provides funding for the development of SpaceX's new generation of liquid oxygen methane engine Raptor. The total investment is estimated to be 61 million US dollars, accounting for about 1/3 of SpaceX's total investment.
What enlightenment can SpaceX's experience bring to China's aerospace industry?
"The situation in China and the United States is completely different." Huang Zhicheng told the Global Times that there are no state-owned companies in the U.S. aerospace industry, only traditional aerospace companies and emerging startup companies, while China has a strong aerospace state-owned company—— Aerospace Science and Technology Group, which has a history of more than 60 years, has a large amount of infrastructure and a large number of elite talents.
He said that China's commercial aerospace industry must adhere to a new nationwide system under the new situation.
In the face of challenges from other countries, China must step up its reform of state-owned enterprises and greatly improve innovation capabilities and work efficiency. On the other hand, it must encourage social capital to enter China’s commercial aerospace market as much as possible, and cultivate a number of emerging private aerospace companies. .