Founding team @Mashgin. Public market turned deep tech seed investor. Publish Buffett letters book: https://nitter.cf/t.co/J1ESA46POB, SpaceX book
San Francisco Bay Area
Joined March 2009
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It's also a book. Just like my Buffett letters book, but rocket engineering instead of investing wisdom.
Limited printing for now. Before I can publish it, I need a little help getting it in front of Elon...
spacex.explorist.io/book
Had claude make me the time cycle clock I've always wanted: day, week, lunar month, year. Now I want a physical version...
16 years ago I watched the first Falcon 9 launch on a webcast. I'd never imagine a $1T+ IPO anytime in the future. I've followed SpaceX closely since then & believe that (no matter the valuation) it's a once in a generation company, truly building a sci-fi future at the frontier of our capabilities.
Congrats @SpaceX!
2006-07
@elonmusk: "My apologies for the long delay in providing an update. Between the Falcon 1 return to flight, Falcon 9 development and the NASA COTS program, this has been an inordinately busy period for SpaceX.
No major surprises were uncovered in the course of the investigation, so perhaps more interesting is the broader set of design & process improvements that constitute 'Falcon 1.1'. I will post whatever I can, excluding only proprietary or ITAR restricted information."
2006-03-25
@kimbal update: "The team is on Omelek collecting debris. The rocket impacted on a dead reef about 250 ft away from the launch pad, so most of it is recoverable for analysis.
Amazingly, the satellite was thrown high into the air when the rocket impacted and came crashing down through the roof of our machine shop, landing mostly intact on the floor! One helluva’ return trip. The hole in the machine shop roof is the only significant damage to the island."
LA Times: "Rocket Fails in SpaceX’s First Launch"
2006-03-24
FALCON 1 LAUNCH DAY
"Revised T-zero time is 2:30 p.m. California time today.
Webcast is Now Available. Please note the feed will be coming over a satellite link, so users will experience periodic interruptions. When video freezes, merely restart/refresh program."
@kimbal update: "T-minus 30 Minutes! After a small delay, the team is off the island, and we are now outside the window where we would hit the Internation Space Station with the rocket. Probably worth waiting a little bit as I don’t think NASA has much of a sense of humor. It would be funny though, just not funny to them."
2:30pm, @kimbal: "Holy Shit!!!! It launched. It really launched. Holy shit."
3:00pm, @elonmusk: "We had a successful liftoff and Falcon made it well clear of the launch pad, but unfortunately the vehicle was lost later in the first stage burn. More information will be posted once we have had time to analyze the problem."
2006-03-26
"The good news is that all vehicle systems, including the main engine, thrust vector control, structures, avionics, software, guidance algorithm, etc. were picture perfect. Falcon’s trajectory was within 0.2 degrees of nominal during powered flight. However, at T+25s, a fuel leak of currently unknown origin caused a fire around the top of the main engine that cut into the first stage helium pneumatic system. On high resolution imagery, the fire is clearly visible within seconds after liftoff. Once the pneumatic pressure decayed below a critical value, the spring return safety function of the pre-valves forced them closed, shutting down the main engine at T+29s."
Video of launch: youtube.com/watch?v=S4NKubBh…
2006-03-15
Elon: "Falcon 1 has been removed from its hangar and erected on the launch pad. All systems are currently go for a static fire on March 17 or 18, followed by a launch between March 20 and 25."
2006-03-21
"We had a great static fire today. Falcon was held down for almost three seconds of thrust (T+0.5s), part of which was under autonomous thrust vector control. All systems were green and no aborts were triggered."
2006-02-10
"We were very happy to be able to execute a flight countdown all the way to lighting the engine. Although there wasn’t a launch this time, we made a lot of progress refining the rocket and launch pad — all work that needed to be done anyway. I will post a longer update next week, after we have enough time to finish forensics of recent events and formulate next steps.
—Elon"
2006-02-24
"The tentative launch window for the maiden flight of Falcon 1 is March 20 through 25. The gating items are receiving a shipment of liquid oxygen (LOX) from Hawaii and switching out the 2nd stage tank. Obviously, long term operations on Kwaj will require that we install a state-of-the-art, high reliability LOX plant on island. In the meantime, we will get through first launch with LOX shipments from Hawaii and whatever output we can generate from the sad, old clunker of a LOX plant that we currently own."
