Sasha

I spent most of my lunchtime reading a magazine article on Elon Musk, whose development of the Falcon rocket I've been following. Not because I have a satellite that's need urgently in geosynchronous orbit, but because I grew taking for granted that humans will become a spacefaring civilisation. I'm afraid though that rather than watch people living and working in extraterrestrial places, most of the interest seems to be figuring out why humans have made so little progress since the 1960s.

Musk was splashed across a couple of magazine covers as their 'Being of the Year' and the one I read today tried to compare him with the late Steve Jobs. That comparison is probably a bit fatuous and is really to draw readers into the article. What did resonate with me was Musk's use of Physics from which to find business opportunities. The main example given working out from the Physics the cost in raw material & fuel of launching a typical rocket into orbit. He came up with a value that was less than 1% of quoted values from space launch organisations, so on the face of it there was a huge opportunity to build a cheaper launch vehicle. The laws of physics won't prevent him from building that cheaper rocket; it's just (as the old academic joke went) a matter of 'engineering'.

I had taken this subject before. I didn't recognise her today, but she recognised me, so I got the chance to take a second and (hopefully) better portrait.