In the chap­ter “Rock­et Man” from a book on SpaceX’s incep­tion in 2002, Elon Musk, along­side Adeo Ressi and Jim Cantrell, embarked on a trip to Rus­sia with the ini­tial aim of pur­chas­ing a used Russ­ian rock­et for a Mars mis­sion. The jour­ney involved a pecu­liar meet­ing dense with cul­tur­al exchanges, includ­ing a lunch where Musk passed out from an equal bal­ance of food and vod­ka, and a vivid nego­ti­a­tion scene that reflects both the chal­lenges and the almost comedic mis­un­der­stand­ings in inter­na­tion­al busi­ness trans­ac­tions.

Fac­ing dis­mis­sive and ulti­mate­ly unfruit­ful nego­ti­a­tions with the Russians—who demand­ed exor­bi­tant prices for their decom­mis­sioned missiles—Musk’s frus­tra­tion cat­alyzed a piv­otal shift in his approach. The pro­hib­i­tive­ly high costs quot­ed for the rock­ets, cou­pled with a con­tentious inter­ac­tion where a Russ­ian offi­cial spat in their direc­tion, did not deter Musk; instead, these expe­ri­ences spurred an evo­lu­tion in his think­ing. Rather than secur­ing a used mis­sile, Musk con­tem­plat­ed cre­at­ing a ven­ture to devel­op rock­ets pri­vate­ly, aim­ing not just for satel­lite launch­es but for human space trav­el as well.

Adopt­ing a first-prin­ci­ples per­spec­tive, Musk scru­ti­nized the fun­da­men­tal costs of rock­et mate­ri­als ver­sus their retail price, iden­ti­fy­ing what he dubbed an “idiot index”—a mea­sure of inef­fi­cient pric­ing due to tra­di­tion­al man­u­fac­tur­ing method­olo­gies. This analy­sis revealed the poten­tial for sig­nif­i­cant cost reduc­tions, pro­pelling Musk to envis­age build­ing rock­ets more eco­nom­i­cal­ly.

Upon return­ing home, fueled by deter­mi­na­tion and a new­found vision, Musk broached the idea of start­ing his own rock­et com­pa­ny, SpaceX. This pro­pos­al was met with skep­ti­cism from his cohort, lead­ing to an inter­ven­tion that para­dox­i­cal­ly solid­i­fied his resolve. He was unde­terred by reminders of the high fail­ure rate in rock­etry; instead, the empha­sis on risk and the pos­si­bil­i­ty of finan­cial loss under­scored his com­mit­ment to advanc­ing space explo­ration.

Musk’s stead­fast­ness, framed by a nar­ra­tive that oscil­lates between humor­ous anec­dotes and piv­otal moments of insight, high­lights not only his uncon­ven­tion­al approach to prob­lem-solv­ing but also his audac­i­ty to rethink and chal­lenge the sta­tus quo in aero­space. This chap­ter effec­tive­ly sets the stage for the birth of SpaceX, encap­su­lat­ing the mix­ture of ambi­tion, adver­si­ty, and the dri­ve for inno­va­tion that char­ac­ter­izes Musk’s entre­pre­neur­ial spir­it.