Erik Nordeus - The Engineer

Another problem was that we didn’t believe rockets were as exciting as we did in the 1960s. No one wanted to explore and expand beyond Earth anymore. “Spend billions of dollars to land an astronaut on Mars? What a waste of money!”

If there was no military threat and if rockets were not exciting anymore, why would we risk our lives in potentially lethal rockets and pay the money needed? “My theory was to apply the majority of my effort to the space arena, because there is not a natural economic forcing function that will lead to space exploration,” Elon said. 52As the world’s oil supply decreases, the price of oil will increase, and the market will automatically motivate engineers to design machines not dependent on oil. These market forces are currently not present in space because nothing will force us to go to space unless an asteroid or a new military power threaten us.

Of the three things that in the future will most affect the future of humanity, Elon had already tried Internet two times. Since the transition to a sustainable energy economy will take care of itself, space exploration, particularly extension of life to multiple planets, needed Elon more.

Elon and Ressi needed to find a way to make space interesting once again. “We were going to show the world that two guys with money and vision could reach Mars, and that it wasn’t that bad a place,” Ressi said. 278When NASA realized the public began losing interest in space, they had roughly the same idea as Elon and Ressi. To make us more interested in space, NASA decided to turn a teacher into an astronaut. The chosen teacher, Christa McAuliffe, boarded the Space Shuttle Challenger in 1986. 73 seconds after the launch, the Space Shuttle broke apart. All seven astronauts were killed together with our remaining interest in space.

The first idea Elon and Ressi had was to send green plants to Mars. The name of the project was Mars Oasis. With a $65 million price tag to complete the project, Elon found investors who also were critical to NASA’s abilities to bring humans to Mars. 4

The idea behind Mars Oasis was to in 2005 launch a smaller spacecraft and land it on Mars in 2006. 365Among other equipment, the spacecraft contained a small greenhouse with an enclosed chamber filled with dehydrated nutrient gel. 4Different plants grew in the greenhouse, ranging from tomato plants to mustard weeds. The purpose was to test if humans could live off the land, and pictures from these plants would be transmitted back to Earth. “We’d have a great photo of green plants with a red background,” Elon said. “The public tends to respond to precedence and superlatives. This would be the first life on Mars and the furthest life had ever traveled. That would get people excited and increase NASA’s budget. If I could afford it, I figured it would be a worthy expenditure of money, with no expectation of financial return.” 63,305

Another idea was the Life to Mars project where the green plants were replaced by mice-astronauts. “Do you think people would think I’m crazy if I sent mice to Mars?” Elon asked his friends. 59With the purpose to see if mice could breed in an environment similar to the environment on Mars, the mission would last for six weeks. But the rodents didn’t have to worry about landing on a planet. To simulated the gravity on Mars, they lived in a rotating craft up in space. 287

While NASA’s space missions focuses on geological research, the theme of these different projects by Elon and Ressi was to see if humans could live on Mars. “The public could get excited about it, and that would result in funding from NASA and an imperative to take things to the next step,” Elon said. 57

But Elon and Ressi were no space engineers, so they needed help. In August 2001, one month after they came up with the idea to do space, Elon contacted the aerospace consultant Jim Cantrell.

“I had the top down on my car, so all I could make out was that some guy named Ian Musk was saying that he was an Internet billionaire and needed to talk to me,” Cantrell said. “I’m pretty sure he used that phrase, ‘Internet billionaire.’ I told him I’d call him back when I got home, but when I called, I got a fax machine. I said, ‘Sure, Internet billionaire.’ Then my phone rang. I asked him what was with the fax machine.”

“I don’t want you to know my cell number,” Elon replied. “I want to change mankind’s outlook on being a multi-planetary species. Can we meet this weekend? I have a private jet, I’ll fly to your house.”

“No, I’ll meet you at the airport in Salt Lake,” Cantrell replied. He wanted to meet in a secure environment where Elon couldn’t bring a weapon.

After the meeting ended, Cantrell wasn’t suspicious anymore. Cantrell decided to help Elon to put a team together and see how much the project would cost. 278They talked to contractors who could build the Mars Oasis for a comparatively low cost. But to fulfill the mission they needed more than one rocket, or launch vehicle in aerospace-industry parlance. If the first rocket failed, they wanted to be on the safe side and be able to launch another rocket. 288

The cheapest American rocket was Boeing’s Delta II. With a launch cost of $50 million, they thought it was too expensive. So they began a global hunt for cheap rockets. “We went everywhere: France, small private contractors in Russia, the Pasadena Jet Propulsion Lab, the people who have the X Prize,” Ressi said. 60

In France, they met with Arianespace – the European organization that launched several of the world’s satellites. “We rented the penthouse suite of one of the major hotels in Paris, across from the Louvre,” Ressi said. “We had the whole top floor, usually rented by the sultan of Brunei or something. Elon and I invited all our friends. It was basically about sixty hours of meetings and thirty hours of partying.” 278

One peculiar thing Elon learned in Paris was that you first might think all the women are good looking. “Actually if you look carefully, they aren’t really so good looking, they just think they are,” Elon said. “They walk proudly, dress with style and act as if they own the world. Women are lucky, they can make themselves look better. We [men] have to settle for the way we look.” 81,115

It turned out also the European rockets were too expensive, so they decided to head east. In 2001, they began traveling to Russia to negotiate if they could use the Dnepr rocket, named after the Dnepr river. The Dnepr was a converted Russian SS-18 Satan intercontinental ballistic missile developed in the 1960s. An intercontinental ballistic missile is typically designed to deliver one or more nuclear weapons and each Satan could deliver ten nuclear warheads. “It was very weird going late 2001–2002 to Russia and saying ‘I want to buy two of your biggest rockets, but you can keep the nukes,’” Elon said. “They thought I was crazy, but, I did have money. So, that was okay.” 63

The Russian economy collapsed in 1998, so the economy was even worse than after the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991. “This was when it was still the Wild West over there,” Ressi said. “I mean, there were like dead people on the side of the road. We got pulled over multiple times, at gunpoint, and had to bribe the police. No reason. Just ‘Give us money.’“ 278

They went through several negotiations at secret locations, including a negotiation with a general, who had lost a front tooth, in a room with padded walls. As you may suspect, they had to consume vast amounts of vodka during these negotiations. “We’d all go in this little room and every single person had his own bottle in front of him,” Ressi said. “They’d toast every two minutes, which means 20 or 30 toasts an hour.”

“To space!”