PART 1 Summary
Although the prospect of sending a rocket into space was beyond remote, SpaceX revealed its master plan for a second rocket, namely, the Falcon 5. Elon Musk relentlessly drove his employees to sweat blood over his ambitious scheme. Meanwhile, in order to accelerate SpaceX’s pace he reached out to suppliers with relevant manufacture experience from different fields and watched them like a hawk. A poor company called Spincraft fell behind Musk’s schedule and ended up being ditched.
SpaceX’s original timeline to launch its rockets was shattered. Nonetheless, there was a silver lining in the fall of 2004 as the Merlin engine made by Mueller and his team reached fruition. With the engine ready, the crew came to realize that sending a rocket into space is much easier said than done, with zillions of problems ahead of them.
Given the cold shoulder by the air force of Vandenberg, SpaceX resettled its launching site to Kwaj, a former missile test site of U.S. Army in the Pacific Ocean. In March 2006, the team finally limbered up to launch Falcon 1. However, the attempt was far from successful and Hollman’s team was made a scapegoat for the failure. Another shot was made a year later.This time the odds were still not in Musk’s favor. After the initial ecstatic 5 minutes, the engine flamed out.
The failure deflated SpaceX’s engineers. Worse still, a financial crunch is looming on the horizon. Burning through Musk’s Internet fortune, Space X was struggling to keep its head above water. Elon Musk, however, after going through those highs and lows, remained upbeat about SpaceX’s future.
PART 2 Expressions
1. Instead of taking the time to haggle with the other companies for right of way, the IT chief Branden Spikes, who had worked with Musk at Zip2 and PayPal, came up with a quicker, more devious solution.
haggle over sth/ haggle with sb: to argue when you are trying to agree about the price of sth
tourists haggling over the price of souvenirs
Ted was haggling with the street vendors.
2. The work was grueling and took place in soul-sapping humidity under a sun powerful enough to burn the skin through a T-shirt.
grueling (British, gruelling) : very difficult and tiring
The cast took a break from their grueling schedule.
Musk's grueling demands
sap: SYN weaken, especially one's strength or their determination to do sth
sap one's strength/ courage/ energy
Her illness was gradually sapping Charlotte's strength.
3. SpaceX scrambled to fix the issue but lost too much of its fuel to launch before the window closed.
1.Climb; move quickly
2.Try to do sth difficult very quickly
They were scrambling to give the impression that the situation was under control.
3.compete with other people to get or reach sth
Thousands of people will be scrambling for tickets.
4. “It is perhaps worth noting that those launch companies that succeeded also took their lumps along the way,” Musk wrote in a postmortem.
take your lumps American English, informal, to accept that bad things that happen and not let them affect you
According to experts, the company took its lumps but is on the road to profitability.
a lump in/ to sb's throat: a feeling that you want to cry
There was a lump in her throat as she gazed t the child.
postmortem/ post-mortem:
1. an examination of a dead body to discover why the person died
2. an examination of a plan or event that failed, done to discover why it failed
a post-mortem on the company's poor results
5. I have a lot of respect for those that persevered to produce the vehicles that are mainstays of space launch today.
the mainstay of sth
1. an important part of sth that makes it possible for it to work properly or continue to exist
Agriculture is still the mainstay of the country's economy.
2. someone who does most of the important work for a group or organization
She was the mainstay of the team.
6. SpaceX is in this for the long haul and, come hell or high water, we are going to make this work.
long haul: sth that takes a lot of time and effort:
At last we've won our freedom but it's been a long bitter haul.
for the long haul: until sth that will take a long time is done or achieved.
I'm in this for the long haul (= going to stay involved until the end).
come hell or high water: informal, not polite, in spite of any problems or difficulties.有点“不管上刀山下火海”的意思
I decided I would get the job done by Friday, come hell or high water.
PART 3 Thoughts
Musk had vowed publicly that he would see this thing through to the end, but people inside and outside the company were doing back-of-the-envelope math and could tell that SpaceX likely could only afford one more attempt--maybe two. To the extent that the financial situation unnerved Musk, he rarely if ever let it show to employees. "Elon did a great job of not burdening people with those worries," said Spikes. "He always communicated the importance of being lean and of success, but it was never 'if we fail, we're done for.' He was very optimistic."
投资中有一个很重要的原则就是“不把所有的鸡蛋放在一个篮子里”， 但是我觉得那些把所有鸡蛋放在一个篮子里的人是很可贵和令人崇敬的。Elon Musk把他几乎所有的财富、资源和时间都投入到了他梦想的航天事业中，当周边的人都在计算得失的时候，他所有的关心和注意力都在他与梦想的距离上。在某种程度上，Musk是一个活在自己世界里的人，不被世俗的物质基础和人为评价所困扰。这个世界有很多怀抱着大理想的人，但与Musk所不同的是，大多数人只憧憬着那个远大美好的目标，但是却无法承受那过程中所付出的巨大代价。要想得到最好的，就要做好承受最差的准备。
