The current state of Space Exploration

Let it never be said I will only talk about Tesla on the interwebs. After all, you should know very well that Elon Musk also runs the first ever successful private rocket ship company. Today, April 25th, was a proud day for Mr. Musk, and he arranged with reporters to have a live conference at 1:00 PM Eastern time during which he announced the following:

1. Technological breakthrough achieved: Process in which all stages/components of a rocket may be recovered. This is estimated to cut down on the cost of sending cargo/people into space by 70% per launch
2. SpaceX is suing the United States Air Force.

How can you not love this guy?

I was never much interested in things besides math, history and music in school, but the only science class I loved was astronomy. That was probably because my teacher was ex-JPL and had amazing stories of all the satellite and shuttle launches he had been involved in. I have always read up on the history of space exploration so I have some limited background in which to digest the enormity of SpaceX's success. Let's run through a quick dossier:

Space Exploration Technologies Corporation

• Was founded in 2002
• Currently employees 3,800
• Headquartered in Hawthorne (L.A.), California
• Current cargo vehicle is the Falcon 9, 100% successful mission rate
• The Falcon 9 is named after the Millennium Falcon
• In 2010, SpaceX became the first company to launch a privately built spacecraft into orbit and return it safely to Earth.
• After only 10 years in existence, SpaceX can already deliver cargo to space for 1/6th the price of what NASA/Boeing/Lockheed could manage after being around 56 years
• SpaceX has been able to visit the ISS for a $60 million cost, the Space shuttle cost $450 million a launch, currently NASA is paying Boeing and Lockheed $360 million a launch
• This equates to the ability to launch twice the supply capacity provided by the space shuttle at about 20 percent of the cost
• SpaceX recently purchased launch pad 39a in Florida, site of all the Apollo missions (to the moon)
• Elon Musk is Iron Man
• This year, the company has a $1.6 billion deal with NASA to provide 12 unmanned cargo flights to the International Space Station
• On the Dragon capsule's first test flight in December 2010, it carried a wheel of cheese into orbit. The wheel of cheese was launched in honor of a classic skit from actor John Cleese in the British comedy show Monty Python's Flying Circus.
• Musk once tried to buy ICBM's from Russia with which to test the feasibility of his company. He later said the KGB interrogated him and he had a bad time overall.

Part One

On April 18th, SpaceX launched one of its more or less routine cargo trips to the International Space Station. It's primary mission was a success and provided equipment for an emergency space walk repair to the ISS. Its secondary mission was to test an innovative design feature previously unprecedented in the space industry. The feature is probably best illustrated by watching the following youtube clip: http://youtu.be/9ZDkItO-0a4?t=50s If you are tempted to believe the video is playing backwards, than my attempt at dramatic effect was somewhat effective. 

Space rockets, up till now, have been comprised of 2 or more stages. The first stage was always designed to disintegrate/self destruct. Oftentimes stage two would also be damaged beyond recovery when it fell back to earth. Falcon 9's have 2 stages, and both are now recoverable and reusable. In doing so, the cost of launches may decrease by over half, and multiple launches from the same pad may be possible in the same day. I know very little of the mechanics of kerosene induced thrust, but I know that to keep a rocket of that weight completely vertical upon descent and be able to land on four relatively tiny landing legs takes into consideration millions of factors and requires incredibly complex programming and adaptability. SpaceX was able to achieve this on only its 2nd try, and last week had given it only a 30 - 40% likelihood of success. The first try was 8 months ago and was granted only a 10% chance of a soft landing (failed because they weren't able to compensate for the fuel spinning and sloshing about, this caused the rocket to tumble).

Watching the press conference today revealed the following:

• 70% of every rocket cost is the booster stage that up till now has burned up in atmosphere
• Only 3/1000^ths of the entire rocket launch is fuel ($200,000 of a 60 million dollar launch)
• Musk said this will be able to re-launch in the very same day!!!!
• Costs to put cargo in space will approach only $1,000/pound
• Falcon 9 stage 1 could potentially land within a meter of its target

Unfortunately, although this rocket 'soft-landed' vertically, it was not recovered. This was tested over the ocean and the Stage 1 component remained vertical for 8 seconds. With this proof of concept, it is likely SpaceX asks and receives authorization to attempt to land another stage 1 on its own launch pad before the end of the year.

Interestingly and scarily enough, a Russian vessel was within eyesight of where Falcon set down in the Ocean. This potentially raises some questions, as I am sure you can imagine.

Part Two

(Conference can be found here: http://press.org/news-multimedia/videos/spacex-press-conference)

Why is SpaceX and Elon suing the United States Air Force? This section will definitely be less thrilling than the rest of my post, but it evidences Musk's integrity and willingness to put it all on the line and break the status quo. Keep in mind there are two distinct space markets under consideration here: Nasa runs the missions to ISS, and potentially the moon again and eventually Mars. The United States Air Force (USAF) launches military satellites.

What this really comes down to is that everybody else fails at making cost effective space vessels and that Nasa/USAF space endeavors are probably partially controlled by the same political and corporate fascists that run America. Since the Space Shuttle program and its costly $450 million launches were shut down in 2011, all heavy launches have been contracted to the United Launch Association. ULA is a Joint Venture of Boeing and Lockheed Martin but uses Russian rocket engines. Furthermore, all manned missions to ISS are currently performed by the Russian Soyuz rockets. With the current state of affairs, having American astronauts on the ISS with Russian counterparts all the while dependent on Russian launches is a bit of a concern. Furthermore, the Russian political figure in charge of the Russian side of ULA is already on our sanction list as result of the Ukraine debacle: http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2014/04/25/russian-official-under-us-sanction-plays-key-role-in-pentagon-space-program/

More to the point, SpaceX is suing the USAF as they were not allowed to compete in a 36 mission contract bid. Furthermore, they were lied to or at least misled by the USAF when they sought this bid in 2011 and 2012. They were told to demonstrate 3 successful launches which they accomplished and then exceeded. A day after Musk made progress towards his contract goal during testimony with the Senate, USAF gave the 36 mission, multi-billion dollar contract to United Launch Association without entering it for competition which is likely illegal.

What does this mean? Elon has said it best:

"If our space rocket is good enough for Nasa and supporting a 100 billion dollar space station, it should be good enough for USAF"

"To put this into perspective, had SpaceX been awarded the missions ULA received under its recent non-competed 36 core block buy, we would have saved the taxpayer $11.6 billion"

"Despite—or perhaps because of—decades of accumulated experience and hundreds of billions of dollars in cost-plus contacts, the legacy US aerospace establishment is hopelessly out of touch with what the floor of launch prices should actually be."

Elon has pulled no punches, and as far as I can tell he pretty much with a simple half hour press conference  forced the USAF to be backed deep into a corner and there is probably no escape. Our good (sic) senator John McCain wrote two relevant USAF officials within hours of the conference and demanded to re-open the contract so that SpaceX may compete: http://www.mccain.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/press-releases?ID=c6782e97-ca58-47c4-991f-4587c8da1e9d

In conclusion, I believe we are looking at the most capable inventor and businessman in history. Musk should encourage the entire world to push the envelope and not be afraid to stand up for American jobs and working toward eroding our dependency on other nations for solving problems we could tackle ourselves: I will end with some final eye-opening quotes from Musk:

"The Falcon 9/Dragon system that we're launching today, what can it do? If the degree of safety required was equivalent to that of the shuttle, we could actually launch astronauts on the next flight."

"Technically, if somebody were to stow aboard the cargo version of Dragon, they'd actually be fine. I mean, hopefully."

"We're happy to take people the Moon. If somebody wants to go to the Moon, we can definitely do it."

"We [SpaceX] will probably restore the US to being the premier space capable nation in the world"

"Boeing just took $20 billion and 10 years to improve the efficiency of their planes by 10%, that's pretty lame"

"I would like to die on Mars, just not at the point of impact"

Investing and Retirement

Hello everyone! It's mid week and my studying has droned to a halt. I needed to clear my brain so I decided to share my knowledge on investing tactics that actually work. It is strange that I graduated with a degree in accounting but knew so little about real life application. The American school system is based largely on theory and to apply those theories you've got to get up off the couch and go throw some money around. Luckily, the internet and a few cheap books have taught me how to attract more money that what I threw into the system.

There are many ways to invest. To keep this topic in scope I will only talk about long term investing, the type that is needed for a successful retirement. Fortunately when you have 20 or 30 years to plan and invest your retirement it becomes far less challenging to create a profit, and a substantial one at that. I am talking Millions.  The key to effective retirement is simple: Begin your retirement savings NOW, plan sooner rather than later, and avoid gambling your retirement on risky stocks and market timings.

1. I don't care how old you are, and you have probably heard this often, the earlier you start the better. Based on the last 80 years of data and achievable market returns, every dollar you put away today will be worth $35 - $40 after 40 years. However, for every 10 years you wait,  you can divide that number by 3!. So would you rather have a million at 65? or 3 million? These are actual estimates based on the last 80 years of the stock market performance. Save NOW!!

2. Planning for the retirement should really be concurrent with savings but most people find it difficult if not impossible to save for retirement at a young age and thus saving really needs to take precedent. What is the point of planning a retirement but not having the cash to implement it? Even if you can only scrounge 500 a year, do so, because that $500 will contribute just as much to your eventual retirement as the $1500 you can save 10 years from now.

3. The most common tactics investors use to make money in the stock market DO NOT WORK. This study shows that heavily managed investing funds and companies make, on average, 5% less than average market returns over a 5 to 20 year period. Although I myself have made large returns trading on a single cash cow (Tesla), this was a calculated gamble and would never go into my retirement portfolio. (Companies like Tesla only come about once in history, I was just able to recognize it early on for what it was)


Once you realize the importance of retirement savings, followed by planning, I invite you to discuss with me, or a professional broker, the proven methods of a return on investment. By saving money annually and placing it into a correctly diversified portfolio, it is very reasonable to expect at least an 10% gain on an annual basis. Investing annually will allow you to defeat the uncertainties of market timing, 2008 was a great time to invest!!!! Late 2007 was not. By investing  $500 on Dec 31st 2007, and another $500 on Dec 31st 2008 you would now have $1435. This is because the good year evened out the bad year, thus eliminating the hazard of market volatility. Expanding this method to a period of  20 or more years your return would be 11.2% based on the last 80 years of the American stock movements. Based on these numbers, $500 invested annually for 40 years would grow to 386,000 after 40 years. If you start 5 years later, this would only grow to 219,000.

Final words: How do you invest? Open an account at fidelity.com or at vanguard. I use fidelity and it is super super easy to use with a user portal that puts my college portal to shame. This is where you will access stocks and bonds as well as unlimited resources and advice from real humans.


And I didn't even get a chance to mention the tax deductions you get on retirement savings!!!!

Summary: Save now, buy this book: http://www.amazon.com/Truth-About-Money-4th/dp/0062006487
or read it here -especially the chapter on dollar cost averaging. Talk to me, choose your retirement strategy and stick to it the next 40 years.

Why on earth am I so obsessed with Tesla Motors??

The first exposure I had to Tesla came back in 2008 when the roadsters started appearing in car magazines and I actually saw a couple. The coolest thing to me was it did not require gas and it only had one gear! I came across a mini case study in my management book the last semester of 2012, and I was completely sold. I have now bought over a hundred shares of the company and have made more than a 20% return on those shares. But to understand the company you have to study the CEO:

I first heard of Elon Musk as the co-founder of PayPal and backer of the X Prize competition. The X Prize was a cash prize of at least 1 Million dollars to the first company to create a practical reusable spacecraft. Elon Musk is now the CEO of two companies. SpaceX which recently became the first private company to send equipment to the International Space Station, and Tesla Motors. He is also the chief investor and  Chairman of the Board of Directors for Solar City, which installs solar power generators on houses and businesses.

The South African native was intrigued by going to space and the pursuit of renewable energy even before he became a teenager. In Africa he made money be designing commodore 64 games (precursor to Nintendo and Sony video games) and then selling them. He could not convince his parents to come to America, where he knew innovation would be rewarded, and has said "it is where great things are possible". He emigrated to Canada where his mother was from and then to America. He gained a degree in Business from Wharton and a degree in Physics from the University of Pennsylvania by 1992. At this time he said he wanted to get into 3 areas which would most effect humanity in the upcoming years. They were the internet, clean energy, and space.

In summary he has become a pioneer in all 3. It started with the creation of zip2 and Paypal, the eventual sales of which gained him at least a billion dollars. He used this money to launch the 3 companies I mentioned before SIMULTANEOUSLY. He didn't just pick 1, or even 2, he picked all three of his dreams. At times he has had to borrow money from his friends to pay rent.......

Currently he spends half his time at SpaceX in L.A. and the other half on Tesla in Silicon Valley (San Jose.) This involves flying back and forth up to 4 times a week. Up until recently he personally inspected every Tesla that rolled off the line and it has been said if you ask him about any part of his rocket he can tell you in detail how it works. 

You have got to be kidding me!

This man is a modern day super hero; he is completely selfless, absolutely brilliant, and is one of the few companies working to secure the world's long term future. He named Tesla after Nikolai Tesla, which is another inspiring hero of mine and deserves an entire blog post to himself. Musk actually is a lot like Nikolai Tesla; he is way ahead of his time, brilliant, and terrible at public speaking! As a matter of fact, Tony Starks character is based on Elon Musk! Musk even makes an appearance in Iron Man 2.

Tesla is a unique company and thus far has demonstrated the perfect execution of a totally new way of thinking. The automotive industry is immensely difficult arena for a start-up company. Musk knew he could not compete with affordable cars, so he built cars meant to compete with Lexus, BMW, and Mercedes. Not only that but they are completely electric!!  The cars this company make do not accept gas of any sort, they charge overnight at your house and will have from 120 to 280 miles of range depending on which battery size you buy and how you drive it. This is more than enough for 95% of commutes. Despite the fact that this car is not for everyone, and though very expensive it manages to sell about 89 new cars a day which equates to over a year long wait list in the beginning of 2013. They have delivered almost 4000 vehicles and promise to deliver 20,000 more in 2013. In 2012 it earned several prestigious awards, including Motor Trends car of the year and Yahoo's car of the year. 

Tesla WILL BE the 4th American auto company. Their plan is more flawless than any other business venture I have ever seen. Through Elon Musk's leadership, this innovative company has led battery technology to progress in ways that were previously unrealized. These batteries are getting cheaper and smaller, and gaining extended range. If Tesla can stay in business, the price of a 1000 mile range battery could drop to a  $1000 or even less within a decade. For once and for all America can loose its dependence on oil.

To summarize: Musk stakes at least 320 million of his own money in Tesla and creates the Roadster, a 2 seater sports car with amazing reviews that sold over 2400. He progressed to the Model S which is a family 5+2 sedan, from which he will launch an SUV based on the same platform. In 2014 he will reveal his 3 generation platform rumored to be a simple sedan with a price of under 30k. All of this done without a single gas tank in any of his products!

To conclude: in 2006 Elon Musk made the following blog entry. The last several lines are as follows:

So, in short, the master plan is:

1. Build sports car
2. Use that money to build an affordable car
3. Use that money to build an even more affordable car
4. While doing above, also provide zero emission electric power generation options

Don't tell anyone.

Looks like this man has stuck to his word. In this day and age is is refreshing to know one man can keep his word, make money of it, and enrich the country he lives in. All in all it gives me more hope and helps me avoid total ensanity.



P.S. If you would like to read a great article about Tesla and the struggles and miracles it has pulled off read this: http://www.wired.com/magazine/2010/09/ff_tesla/all/

First update in almost 2 years

Greetings!!!

The last two years have been full of a lot of life changes. For the first time in this span of my life I feel that my free time may accommodate writing again. I have lots of things on my mind, many of which could go on here but I will try to keep it brief and relevant. I hope to use this as a more intimate and rewarding means of conversing with dear friends than facebook, and I hope that I get a small following of quality folk to add to all the newfound inspiration I have found in life.

Some people have asked me what I am doing these days, and how is work? Actually on the day of my wedding as I was walking around the tables talking with everyone I heard one person claim to another"he does have a job". I had to grin and felt it was funny someone had to make such a claim. As a matter of fact I have accepted a job position in auditing, but it will not begin until July or August. So for a short amount of time my wife will be supporting this household.

In the meantime I have plenty of things to think about and work on from my apartment. Somethings on my mind are studying to become a Certified Public Accountant, as well as dabbling in the stock markets and trying to make a buck there. Also I will be passionately working on my writing skills and purging sentence fragments from the western civilization. However, most of all I have a yearning to make sense of what is happening in the world today and what I can do to provide financial, psychological  and most importantly, spiritual shelter from the ensane world we live in for my wife, future family and myself, as well as any friends that wish to come along and boost my low intelligence with their own.

Funny how my blog name has come around in a full circle that I could not have anticipated.

Chiang Kai-Shek, my main man

This morning I had a good long chat with a fellow business student from Taiwan. Our conversation evoked some thoughts and facts which I have not had reason to contemplate in ages. Taiwan has an incredible history, and it's first Generallissimo and President, Chiang Kai-Shek is one of my favorite people of all time.

Taiwan did not exist as a country until 1949. An island mass named Formosa was located off the coast of China and owned by Japan from 1895 until its succession to the Republic of China (not to be confused with the Peoples Republic of China) after World War 2 (1945). Chiang came into power in 1927. His political party was the Nationalists, and the challenges he was about to face were ENORMOUS. His first policy was to banish Soviet advisors from China’s provinces. According to some sources, Chiang than executed all communists he could get his hands on (I love this guy). In 1927 he took off on his first military campaign - The Northern Expedition - and its purpose was to unite China and wrest provincial control from warlords – wow, first time in 3000 years, this guy is gutsy. To keep a long story short, Chiang achieved complete success in uniting China. History books accuse him of being a bad person for slaughtering communists. Unfortunately, history lies. The fact is he did not kill enough communists. Mao Tse-Tung soon threw his weight in the fray. Mao had cleverly waited until Chiang and the Nationalists were weakened militarily by his unification campaign. Mao had several cells of troops hidden in the mountains and he progressed to terrorize villages and build up his political platform. Mao was weak so he relied on terror and guerrilla warfare. And Chiang’s biggest headache was yet to come.

Japan (GRRRRR) invaded China in 1931 and proceeded to perform unmentionable atrocities upon the relatively passive and undeveloped Chinese. The death tolls of the Chinese would amount in the tens of millions – most due to dying of drought and famine caused directly and indirectly by Japan. Chiang’s decision was to fight both the Japanese and Communists at the same time. His advisors, and I suppose I can understand this, wanted him to team up with communists (bad move all the same) but Chiang remained resolute. At least, he remained resolute until his own governors kidnapped him until he agreed. The Nationalists’ and Communists fought side by side against the Japanese, and World War 2 ended almost 7 years later.

By the way, during this time there was a volunteer American air force fighter wing in China under General Chennault, the Flying Tigers (before America was officially in the war). Additionally, John Birch was in China at the same time. Birch would later be shot and killed by a Chinese communist after the war and all hostilities had ceased. Both these historical entries are amongst the most interesting stories I have ever come across.

During the war Mao didn’t do squat to help out China. He got training for his troops and when peace (yah right) was declared, his troops had been conveniently placed at strategic locations (weapons dumps, capital cities) in order to eliminate the Nationalists. Also, Russian declared war on Japan 3 days after Hiroshima got nuked (the significance here is that Japan was already defeated and Stalin just wanted to take some land). Russia invaded indiscriminately all the land Japan had formerly taken in China. Can you guess whether they ever gave this land back to China? I just found the following quote from Wikipedia which adds to the insanity: “the Soviets spent the extra time systematically dismantling the extensive Manchurian (Chinese) industrial base (worth up to 2 billion dollars) and shipping it back to their war-ravaged country”. Amidst it all, CHIANG KEPT FIGHTING. And he would have won except for one thing.

America began sending much of its surplus military supplies to Chiang. About 1948 Truman had a change of heart. Without prior notice – I kid you not – Chiang and the Nationalists suddenly found their American-built Sherman tanks shelling it out with Sherman’s manned by communists. Truman continued to back Mao all the way until Communist victory. Chiang and the Nationalists retreated to Taiwan, and to this day the Taiwanese government is called the Republic of China.

Chiang would still manage to win one brilliant victory. When he left China, he took with him the entire gold reserve of the Chinese treasury (OWNAGE). When distributed amongst such a relatively small population, Taiwan would soon recieve the following entry on Wikipedia: “Taiwan's rapid economic growth in the decades after World War II has transformed it into an industrialized developed country and one of the Four Asian Tigers. This economic rise is known as the Taiwan Miracle. It is categorized as an advanced economy by the IMF and as a high-income economy by the World Bank. Its advanced technology industry plays a key role in the global economy. Taiwanese companies manufacture a large portion of the world's consumer electronics”. Conversely, China would spend the next 50 years fighting for economic well-being, and it only emerged into a place of strength through the acts of political traitors in America who committed abuses beyond description against our fine country.

In the UN there are 5 nations that have veto power: US, Russia, China, France and Britain. Initially, Taiwan held China’s post in the UN up until 1971 at which time the UN voted to recognize the communist People's Republic of China as the legitimate ruler. So now Taiwan sits on its own with very little influence or protection from the UN. Its well known China has long viewed Taiwan as a thorn in its side. China's first move might very well to annex Taiwan. Time will tell.

Greetings! I determined the time was ripe to start a blog.

FIRST POST!! EXCITED!! The brass tacks are as follows: I desire an outlet to spew forth the perspective(s) I hold which keep life in.... perspective. The theme is going to be one of critical thinking aided by Catholic tradition and scripture and applied toward...... knowing, loving, and serving God, and also, if God should allow, eluding insanity.

Every day, the world's populace - myself included - awake and find themselves under strain and confusion and murkiness. Something like the Matrix. What we are looking at is not what is really there; at least what we are able to see can be of no particular importance.

Time is a creature. Isn't that interesting? When all else fails, this is what snaps me out of the false pretension heralded by our neighbors, politicians, Pope, Bishops, friends, and yes family. Outside time exists the life we were made for. Isn't it funny how time is used as a generic measuring unit for humans most sought-after goals? Dollars per hour, annual salary per year, miles per hour, 1 lecture hour per college unit per week. an 8 to 5 workday (8 and 5 hours of the clock, respectively, ante and post-meridiem) and and lastly, an average lifespan of 77 years per male and 81 years for females. Time is the catchall for living life. But, ladies and gentleman, there is life after death....

One day we will exist only outside time, and depending on how our lives were measured in units other than time will determine our comfort relative to our metaphysical form :) The bottom line is, if I am still counting the seconds down on my watch, than what I am seeing is only a temporary creation subject to the existence or non-existence of time.

Welcome to my blog! If you have survived thus far I am pleased to announce that you have likely bourne the brunt of my philosophical ramblings. My 2nd post will be more traditional and may be of interest to those of you who yearn for a opportunity to find a retreat from the steady barrage of strain and anti-truths heralded by the prince of this world.