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Space X is an American private space transportation company founded by PayPal founder Elon Musk. Although it was founded only 20 years ago, it has achieved great advantages in rocket technology and has become the focus of public attention.
How did Musk do it in such a short time? In “The Keys to Good Strategy,” strategy authority Richard Rumette argues that SpaceX’s success lies in his grasp of the problem and insight into how to overcome it.
Posted by Richard Rumette
Entrepreneur Elon. Musk (Elon Musk) was one of his passions to colonize Mars, and he advocated sending small payloads to Mars to accomplish this idea.2001In 2008, he visited Russia to buy an old Russian rocket, but in the process he was dissatisfied with the negotiating style of the other party and the price soared by three times during the negotiation. He began to examine the problem:Why it costs so much to put a payload into orbit。
A detailed study of the challenge revealed that the cost issue was clearly the fact that the rockets were no longer recyclable, one rocket per payload.Musk believes that the key point of the cost issue is re-entry, how to make the rocket run at an hourly speed 1,8000 How about passing through the atmosphere, avoiding the scorching furnace and returning to the ground?In order to allow the old space shuttle to be recycled and reused, the large wings have to be 3,5000 A piece of insulation tile, each piece of insulation tile must function perfectly, after each flight mission must be carefully checked, and then each piece of insulation tile is put back in its special position. In this way, the space shuttle thrusters should be recyclable and reused, but when dropped into the ocean, the space shuttle thrusters will be too damaged to be recovered and reused.
So it seems cheaper to throw away a rocket than to build a rocket and reuse it.
You can think of this challenge as supporting your fingers and left foot on the rock wall of the dog’s butt, bending your body back, and protruding your chest and abdomen forward towards the rock face arc: Release your fingers and lift up to grab that half What is the trick to cantaloupe stone?
The concept of a pivot point is to focus attention on a critical issue; strategy is to combine policy and action to overcome a major challenge; the art of strategy is to define a critical problem that can be overcome, and to see or design a way through it. key point method。
Focusing on recyclability and re-entry, Musk gained an insight: fuel is much cheaper than vehicles, and by carrying more fuel, the rocket’s return to Earth can be slowed down, avoiding the extreme heat encountered during re-entry enormous complexity. Like many sci-fi stories of the past, Musk imagined a rocket turning around, starting the first engine to slow down and land. There is no hot furnace for re-entry, the outer layer of the vehicle will not be charred, and the process is automated without human intervention. The point is to build a rocket engine that can start and stop reliably and adjust power accurately.
As far as organizations are concerned, a common way to overcome or pass critical points is through a high degree of focus, using elements of a multitude of strengths, knowledge, and skills. For strategists,Focusing is not just attention, but applying the source of power to a chosen target。
If the power is too weak, nothing will happen; if the power is strong, but spread over many objects, it will not be effective; if the power is concentrated, but concentrated on the wrong object, it is completely useless. A breakthrough occurs when the force is focused on the right goal.
Musk Yu 2002 Year founded Space X , he developed a focused, coherent policy. Its rocket will be completely redesigned in a low-cost, economical way, rather than a modified ICBM,Space X Nor are thousands of contractors (contractor), its vehicles will not attempt to orbit the Earth to satisfy the USAF.Space X Without a large group of scientists who want to explore the universe, and without a fancy R&D lab, the challenges Musk is focusing on are engineering, not scientific.
Unlike NASA (NASA），Space XNot on a mission to inspire children to study science and mathematics.Space X The first step in exploration and pursuit is a single-hearted, high focus on reducing costs.
Many questioned Musk, arguing that a low-cost approach would sacrifice reliability, and he responded purely from an engineer’s point of view:
A lot of people ask us, “Does the reliability decrease when the cost is lowered?” This is completely nonsense. Ferraris are expensive and unreliable. But I’ll bet $1,000 on you for $1, you go buy a Honda Himy and drive it for a year with no problems.You can have cheap and reliable cars, and the same goes for rockets.
To keep costs down, Musk has focused on engineering and manufacturing simplicity, as well as limiting subcontractors (subcontractors)Number of.falcon 9 carrier rocket (Falcon 9) using an Ethernet data bus instead of a custom design, its own machine shop builds special models at a cost far lower than aerospace contractors.
The work of the big contractors is basically quite tedious as most of the work is subcontracted and the contractors are mainly dealing with the government. On the contrary,Space X Engineers are stressful but not boring.
Space X The first commercial flight of 2009 In 2008, a Malaysian observation satellite was launched into orbit.But the company’s revolutionary creation began with 2015 year, falcon 9 The carrier rocket became the first rocket ever to turn its payload into orbit, start its engines, re-enter the atmosphere slowly, and land softly on the tail.
arrive 2018 year, falcon 9 The cost per pound of the rocket to deliver the payload into low orbit is cheaper than previous space shuttles 23 times, its sibling Falcon Heavy (Falcon Heavy) put the falcon 9 The cost per pound of the carrier rocket was cut in half (see
2020 year 5 moon 20 Day,Space X Carry two NASA astronauts to the International Space Station.In early June of the same year, the NASA approved Space X Reuse Falcons in future missions 9 carrier rocket, and the future manned Dragon capsule (Dragon crew) plan.
NASA estimates that going to Mars will take $2,000 $100 million, while Musk estimates that it will only cost $90 One hundred million U.S. dollars, this advantage stems largely from a coherent and coherent policy focused on simplicity, reusability and cost. If Congress or the bureaucracy plots this task, the cost will be greatly inflated, and hundreds of thousands of agendas and payroll personnel will be attached to the plan.
Space X It is hard to say whether there will be major success in the future. Building rockets and going to space are risky things. The current media atmosphere can stir up any fatal accident. By current standards, twentieth-century flying machines simply won’t develop because people will get hurt.
But what I can tell you is,Space X The reason why it can gain an advantage in the field of rocket technology is mainly becauseMusk got the crux of the problem and insight into how to overcome it.In addition, the company’s coherent and coherent policies create an advantage, all of which are really aimed at getting objects into orbit at the lowest cost possible.
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(The content of this book is from “The Key to Good Strategy: Strategy Masters teach you a complete battle from concept to implementation, and teach you to formulate a good strategy step by step”, reprinted with permission from Business Week, and agrees to VidaOrange to write the guide and revise the title. Source of the first picture :Unsplash）