Part one: Mars and “good rocket”
A few weeks before this interview, Musk also talked with German newspaper Handelsblatt. Appeared article, after which rumors about a possible Apple move in the direction production and design of cars.
Apple has hired several important engineers Tesla. Is there any reason to worry about a new competitor?
“Important engineers? They hired the people we fired. We always jokingly called Apple the “graveyard of Tesla”. If you did not work in the Tesla, you can take a job at Apple. I’m not kidding”.
How seriously do you feel about Apple’s ambitions?
“Have you ever looked at Apple Watch? (laughs). No, seriously: it’s good that Apple is moving and investing in this direction. But the car is much more complicated compared to phones or smart watches. You can reach vendor type Foxconn and say: build me a car. For Apple car will be the next logical step to significant innovation. New pencil or iPad a better fit.”
Words Mask flew around the world, but to portray them have become the least engaging way: as if Musk has declared war on Apple. Of course, he tried to explain his statements on Twitter: “Hey, I don’t hate Apple. This is a great company with lots of talented people. I like their products and I’ll be happy if they do electric cars. As for the clock, johnny and his team created a beautiful design, but functionality lacking. The third version of it will appear.” It didn’t help. Send the headers of “Elon Musk tried to apologize to Apple, but even more rude”.
And yet, though you might’ve said not what you wanted, maybe it was a reflection of your true thoughts?
“You know, it is better not to say anything, he says. — In my opinion, there was no hint of hostility. Not that I was worried about the favor of Apple or something, but I don’t want to create hostility”.
If we talk about the look of Tesla to Apple, the first company has a tradition — at least in the last two years — to declare of counterfeit (fake) products in the blog on 1 April. In 2014, it has surprised its users by concept Pet Driving Cars (vehicles operated by Pets), where it showed a collage of two giant kittens on the roof of the Model S in the background of the ocean.
This year the joke was simply:
“Today, Tesla introduced a completely new line of products called Model W. As expected the media is a watch. Hence W (watch). This incredible new device from Tesla not just tells time and date. It will change your life. Familiar to you, reality will never be the same”.
At the end of September Musk launched this product Tesla, Model X SUV, in a giant hangar near the main industrial Tesla factory in Fremont, California. Hundreds of Tesla owners excited and wishing to possess machine crowded on the floor. He is critical of the person, including Sergey Brin from Google, which was supposed to be one of the first five owners of the Model X late at night. In the next row from the stage sat two son of the Mask (he has twin 11-year-old triplets and 9-year-old) — the other three participated in the presentation, demonstrating how much Luggage can fit in the car. One of the two sons seized a time to read a book until he started the presentation: the book was a children, but portrayed a complex scientific principles — for example, one Chapter was called “Other orbit”.
At the end of that series was the mother Mask, Mei, enjoying his late-career model 60’s, and beyond that sat the second wife Mask, British actress Tallulah Riley. It is difficult to imagine that Musk, purposeful and focused, maybe with someone to get along with. This impression is fueled by the extensive and open blog of his first wife Justine, which she had written both during and after their wedding, but Musk always brings a different impression. In 2012, while Bloomberg Businessweek, in a conversation with Ashley Vance, Musk dropped a quote that clearly reflects the practicality of his life: “I Think the time allotted to the business and children, very well balanced. However, I would have taken more time to date. I need to find a girl. How much time a woman needs a week? Around ten o’clock?”. And the history of the Mask with Riley is far from simple. They got engaged in 2010, and in 2012 filed for divorce, got married again in 2013, and in 2014 filed for divorce a second time. Since then, no public statements were not, but the fact that they again appear together, eloquently suggests that second divorce is also not successful.
How Musk launches products, not like other events you could see. Although he has a peculiar charisma, he really is not an artist, and there are several signs that it was carefully rehearsed and memorized the script. He’s definitely sure, despite the excitement and endless “uh”, along with a strange little laugh turning into a cough, but in his speech there’s something utterly unpretentious — behaves as the teenager who was asked to play a Titan of industry at a family dinner. It is also possible that the pause in his speech is because he’s thinking what to say and what is not. Or it translates in my head my thoughts into the language of ordinary earthlings.
He’s also definitely a strange sense of humor and time. That day he presented the car twice — first to a small group of car and technojunkies, and after on the big event. For each presentation he has a different speech. Speaking with reporters about the distinctive doors “Falcon wing”, he explained that he wanted the door opened and rose up as a ballerina on her toes, which actually forced the engineers to watch the ballet. Then, apologetically, he says that perhaps got carried away with some fishechkami. “I’m not sure anyone would like this car… it has more than you need to sell the car, he says. — This machine never had. And I’m not sure what would be. This is a machine from the future”. For the General public, he acts more theatrical, demonstrating that the doors auto open and close automatically, when the driver fits or departs from the vehicle. “As an invisible driver,” he explains.
But one part of the presentation works equally for both audiences.
He describes the filters vehicles with high detail and puts the focus on the fact that these filters are much steeper than those that were before, and that the air in the car cleared by medical standards. Consequently, as he later explains, “if you ever happen to any apocalyptic scenario or something like that, you just hit the button “mode of protection against biological weapons”…
When he first mentions it, among the press and audience hear this warm and gentle chuckle, like when someone tries to joke. But then he explains — and each audience understands, increasing the degree of laughter that he actually has in mind. Not that someone needed to defend against biological weapons, but on the control panel of the car really does have such a button, provided a sinister symbol, when clicked, the car starts to bring the air into compliance with this standard. And this mode is called protection against biological weapons.
At Tesla and Mask there are tons of stories of this kind. When I first announced the Supercharger network (a network of charging stations across the country, where Tesla owners will be able to recharge their cars), Musk noted that when the planned Supercharger station will start to receive its energy from solar panels, then “even in case of a zombie Apocalypse you will be able to drive through the country on the Tesla Supercharger network”. Or, when Tesla worked to increase the already incredible speed of the acceleration Model S, it was decided to name the new option “frenzy” (insane mode), not only for the eyes but also on the control panel of the car. When found a way to bypass this and the degree of acceleration, followed by a new update: “absurdity.”
What he thinks about this Masque?
“Well, I like a kind of silly to the absurd humor and love technology, so when you combine them.”
And yet there are not so many billionaires among General Directors (Musk laughs, hearing that description of himself) that carefully explain the benefits of its latest product in case of a zombie Apocalypse.
“Yes. Exactly. Yes, I said that we are trying to be the leader in security scenarios from the Apocalypse. And the subject with protection against biological weapons, I also like. But when I worked with the leading engineers air filtration systems, I asked them: “How it (the system) good? Well, they say that viruses and bacteria will break?”. And they were like, “no, No, she will stop. You won’t even be able to measure the degree of protection — a chance for a breakthrough from the infection is as small as in the operating room of the hospital.” And then I said, “Wow, so if there were geneticists created a super virus, would you sit down in the car and were safe?”. And they said, “Yes, we think so”. “Cool, I said, then we will call it the system of protection against a biological weapon or something”.
But it’s ridiculous not just to think but to do. Kind of like with the modes of madness and absurdity.
“I agree. But I don’t know. It seemed that [mode] is ridiculously fast. I found it hilarious, although not everyone thought so, but it seemed that way. He memorized. Most people will remember “ludicrous speed” than, say, 2.8 seconds from zero to hundred. And our competitors usually don’t have a sense of humor, so there will be a watershed”.
3. To design a space suit (which looks cool)
The Elon musk have a bunch of other ideas. If anyone asks, and he got a moment to explain just a little as he absently tells about poka-ne-realizovannyh-ideah-sverkhzvukovom-electroanalyt-s-vertikalni-posadki-I-vzletaem-dlya-dlitelnyj-pereletov; about a completely new form of transport, which he called the Hyperloop which will carry passengers at high speed, pushing through the tubes and air cushions. (He also has a third multi-billion dollar company SolarCity to manufacture and install solar panels). He is one of those people with a rare problem: he has more ideas about how to radically change our world, than time to think.
But he’s doing the best he can. This Monday evening his thoughts are space suits. Now, in particular, he’s going to take a look at the latest secret prototype of a new kind of spacesuit — the first made by a private company the suit, which will put astronauts into orbit and beyond and adopted for use in 2017.
“We’re trying to find a balance between aesthetics and functionality, he explains, sitting in his office at SpaceX. — It’s hard to make something that will work well in reality and to look good.”
In all that makes Musk, has a plan, but it is even more. For the Mask it seems that the new suit must not only work well but also look cool, because people — like you-and we — need to understand how it is put.
“If we’re going to inspire the next generation on the outside of the Earth,” he says, ” it’s got to dream one day to wear such a suit. The easiest way to do the suit — to make it bulky and sticking out from everywhere all”. He laughs. “Actually, me confuses in space suits and what looks like the lower back. Don’t know if you’ve seen the suits “Union”?
I can’t recall.
“Because they never showed that angle! he says, as if apologizing. — All is very bad”. Then he turns to the computer behind and what is found in Google images. “You’ll barely be able to stay on his feet, he says, scrolling page. All images are front view, but this only confirms his point of view. — They’re always trying to avoid shots to the side”.
He also explains the physical dilemma: “Imagine that you are trying to straighten, but the material is very hard — so when you stand, your butt will stick out to much in the back. We are trying to do something with it.”
You are trying to mitigate space syndrome big ass?
“Yeah,’ he replies, a little uncertainly, as if not knowing how well I understood the technical parameters of the problem. — We just want to make it look normal. Comfortable.”
Your suits look like spacesuits of the past?
“They look more like the suits from the movies, he says. — If you have seen the advanced space suits in the movies, they look a bit similar. Unfortunately, those suits don’t work. Except that in Hollywood”.
What about the Hyperloop?
People stuck in traffic every day, but few of them react to the situation, as it reacted Musk. It was in July 2012. It is 45 minutes stuck on the Boulevard Santa Monica, making your way to the shore, where he was to meet with journalist Sarah Lacy and the audience, it was late. “I didn’t realize that they paid for the entrance, and made all these people waiting, without even realizing it, he says. — And thought, “Man, there must be a better way, you know”.
Then it was strange. At first, as he told me, he immediately in the seat of his car, squeezing along the Boulevard Santa Monica, thought we not only needed a new transport, but also presented it in my head (usually the Mask doesn’t write anything down). The idea was specific. Then when he arrived at the event, he couldn’t get it to hold. “I was literally slammed his mouth on an interview,” he recalls. “I said I think I found the best way to get from one place to another.” A special degree of disappointment he added is always late and too expensive high-speed train from San Francisco to Los Angeles. Here’s how he explained his idea during an interview.
Musk: This is the fifth mode of transport. Now we have planes, trains, cars and ships to move on the Ground. But what if the fifth type? While I called it a Hyperloop.
Lacey: Hyperloop? Like the tunnel from “Getshow”?
Musk: like that, Yes.
Lacey: You go to him, and he takes you?
Musk: Yeah… let’s say his average speed is two times higher than that of the aircraft. So from Los Angeles to San Francisco can be reached in 30 minutes.
Lacey: I Think this is possible?
Musk: Yes, absolutely. Absolutely. Yeah.
In the next few months, when the Mask was asked about it, he said he will find time and will present his idea and plans for the Hyperloop open, so others can work out the details. However, he said little and published little. First, he was busy. Secondly, as he said in the interview, there was another reason.
“Actually,” he says, ” what I thought would not work, but then I didn’t understand. It was a wrong predecessor, something on the lines of the pneumatic mail. But the problem is that airsoft doesn’t work due to the fact that the air friction is too great. And it heats the air, the air expands, there is a huge pressure. So air mail does not work on a large scale. For short distances Yes, but not for long”.
Anyone else would have abandoned the idea, but not Musk. He reasoned: “is There any other way to make it work? I don’t want to expose yourself to those who speak of idle things — it would be awkward. Must be something else that will work”.
The following year he stated that he improved the concept, although in this interview admitted that even then, the key detail came to him at the last moment. “The final piece of the puzzle is to use the compressor on the nose of the capsule to compress the air and eject him from behind with an air of skis I found at night, at three o’clock in the morning. Then I thought that it might work”.
It is fair to say that there was a huge audience ready to debunk and smash to pieces all that it will publish, — and the output was surprisingly detailed 58-page document with calculations, arguments, schemes and rates. But there were also people who didn’t see any reasons why this idea should not work, and there were also those who were prepared to build and test. Now companies are investing millions in the Hyperloop prototypes. Musk was not promoted specific initiatives, however, thus building a Hyperloop test site in Los Angeles, to allow students to test their prototypes and figure out which one is faster. And although there is the Hyperloop a long way, nobody has yet found a fundamental flaw, because of which the system will not work.
You do realize that people do not develop new modes of transport in your free time?
“Well, in this case it was on the verge of despair, — he says. — Type better come up with something, not to have to tell people that it’s not working”.
Yes, but many people are desperate now and they do not do such things.
He pauses, as if trying to find an excuse. But can not find.
“It does,” says Musk.
Many times Elon musk was asked to explain his success, and sometimes he even tried. He points at things that do, unlike other people — is actively exploring the negative feedback, for example, and works very, very, very hard. But I think he knows that he is different. In 2007, back when the first Tesla car went on the road, before the takeoff of the first rocket to SpaceX, he clearly noticed this: “I Think I invent solutions to problems. Lot to me it seems obvious that for most people it is far from clear. Not that I tried constantly to do. I just don’t know, can see the essence of things, while others, apparently not so capable of it”.
Eight years later he continues to amaze and to give practical lessons of life.
All, over the last ten years, have held it without you?
“All this what?”
All you are doing at SpaceX, and all that you do in Tesla.
“Would it be without me? Well, something definitely happened. I think not.”
What do you do such a thing to happen?
“Well, you convince good people to join the company and then allow them to work together on achieving clear targets painted strategy”.
But this involved thousands of people. Why you do better than anyone else?
“Actually, this is because people have a strategy in which success is not the possible outcome occurs by chance, something like that. And when this becomes obvious, they do not change strategy. Or can’t attract a critical mass of technical talent, if it involves technology. Or they run out of money before the situation starts to work in plus. Typically, this occurs”.
Of course, but even so, a lot of people left outside.
He laughs. “No, not remains. Very few of them”.
You really think that these obstacles enough to stop almost any?
“Yes, absolutely. Perhaps very often, when a company starts, it moves in the wrong direction. But success depends on how quickly she realizes this and takes measures to remedy the situation. People tend to think they are right even if they are wrong”.
An important part of the history of the triumph of Elon musk, how close he was to total collapse in the second half of 2008. “Yes, we were very, very hard times, he says, Recalling this, and the two companies, SpaceX and Tesla, miraculously escaped death”. The story he told again and again — as SpaceX failed in the first three starts of rockets, and Tesla couldn’t make cars fast or economically feasible, and that when the crisis came, both companies existed only on the remains of 180 million dollars, earned by selling Musk from PayPal, and how he borrowed money from friends. Literally at the last moment fate smiled Mask: the fourth launch of SpaceX reached orbit, and the company signed a contract with NASA and $ 1.6 billion; other investors Tesla agreed to meet last request Mask about $ 20 million, and he coped with the problems.
Since then, SpaceX has received a big blow when last year, after eighteen consecutive successful launches, the Falcon 9 rocket that was to resupply the International space station, exploded after two minutes of flight. “This is our first failure in seven years, because many people in SpaceX was when we experienced the first failure of a company. Then we had only five hundred people, and now five thousand, and 90% of the people knew only success.”
What do the people who are afraid of failure? Musk said that in case of explosion of the rocket they have prepared the term “rapid unplanned disassembly”, or RUD, and that should be enough.
Towards the end of the conversation, the Musk begins to receive periodic reminders, all the more insistent that he was late for a meeting, where we will show the latest prototype spacesuit. While he saw only the elect, but Musk has invited me to look at it, if I promise not to describe the costume itself.
On the same day I was invited on a tour of the SpaceX factory, in the limits permissible for the guests of the area where the rockets, capsules and engines. First you pass through a suit of “Iron man”, which is located here for direct link Elon musk and Tony stark, because the film with Robert Downey Jr. in the title role was inspired by Musk. Rocket factory the most common — here, SpaceX collects the parts of his rocket and capsule, producing almost all of their own — but I also remember some of the places no one has ever seen. Now we go to one of those places. Doing the suit.
Inside awaits people. He’s in the suit SpaceX’s next generation visor raised. In the next 20 minutes, he stands, while Musk and his team discuss the suit. Other options, apparently, early prototypes, early versions, hanging at a construction site in the back of the room. Musk doesn’t behave authoritatively, but asks a lot of specific questions about fabrics, colors, placement of elements and notes what you like and what not. They laugh a lot. Musk simultaneously satisfied and dissatisfied, makes a lot of suggestions for improvement. I think his description of what a space suit like the cinematic is quite fair. And I swear, there are no signs protruding ass.
Part one: Mars and “good rocket”
According to the materials of GQ