Chapter 1785 Burn some Money and Try 1

In the words of Elon Musk, technology is mostly stacked, and between technology and technology, it is like doing permutations and combinations. The more technology you have in your hand, the more tricks you can play. .

Elon Musk has been pursuing next-dimensional things, such as new energy vehicles, autonomous driving, recyclable rockets, and even sending humans to Mars.

Taking advantage of this visit to Yanjing to discuss the next move of Tesla to China, as well as the cooperation between Tesla and Li Mu's other car brands, Elon Musk insisted on pulling Li Mu after eating with Li Mu. There was a long chat in his hotel room.

He first talked to Li Mu about the importance of technology stacking, and the topic still started with cars.

He said to Li Mu: "Mr. Li, technology is actually really interesting. You see, if we install adaptive cruise on a car, we can develop pre-collision based on the radar hardware of adaptive cruise. system."

Li Mu said, "You don't let me go home at night, just to popularize car technology for me?"

Musk laughed: "Look, I'm going to start with automotive technology."

Li Mu said: "I understand what you mean. Today, I make a light bulb, tomorrow I make a battery, and when combined, it will become a flashlight. After two days, I will make a motor and string together more batteries, and it will be an electric car. That's what you meant, didn't you?"

Musk nodded: "Almost..."

Li Mu smiled: "I may not be able to figure out how the battery stores power, but I know how the battery should be used. What do you want to say when you drag me sneakily, just say it directly."

Musk found himself seen by Li Mu, smiled awkwardly, and said, "Mr. Li, I actually want to talk to you about space exploration."

"Space exploration?" Li Mu asked curiously, "Where to explore?"

Musk hurriedly said: "Explore other stars, such as Mars."

Li Mu said: "Isn't NASA doing this? They even sent a Mars rover. What are you going to explore?"

Musk said seriously: "NASA just sent a rover to Mars, but not people to Mars. My goal is to send people to Mars first, and then try to immigrate to Mars."

Li Mu was stunned. He heard about your plan to immigrate to Mars in his last life, but until I was reborn, I never saw you send people to Mars...

So Li Mu asked him, "How are you going to do this?"

Musk said: "Of course, relying on SpaceX, our current research direction is mainly on reusable launch vehicles, and the carrying capacity of our rockets will continue to increase in the future, aligning with NASA's Saturn V, or even surpassing Saturn V. "

"Once we achieve heavy-duty recoverable rockets, our cost per kilogram of incurrence may be reduced to one-tenth or less of the current mainstream launch cost."

"In this way, we have the basis for going to Mars."

"For example, we build a spaceship that can land on Mars, and then use our recyclable launch vehicle to continuously launch space station components into space to build a large space station in space orbit. This process is like driving a car Trucks, one after another, transport the building materials that can build a house from the port of Tianjin to Yanjing. Building a house may require hundreds of tons of building materials. Your truck may only be able to carry five tons at a time, so you need to build a house in Tianjin. There are at least fifty or sixty round trips between the city and Yanjing.”

"Before there were no recyclable rockets, all your trucks were disposable, which means that for every five tons of building materials you transported, you needed to spend a pickup truck, which was extremely expensive, even higher than you had to build. There are many, many houses, but we can turn this disposable truck into a recyclable one in the future, that is to say, every time you travel between Tianjin and Yanjing, you only need to refuel the car and perform daily maintenance on the car That's enough, this cost reduction is not a little bit."

Li Mu nodded.

Ask: "And then what?"

Musk said: "Then it's simple, we now build a space station in space as a supply base, and then transport a large amount of fuel, even booster rockets, to the space station multiple times, turn it into a large supply station, and then We launch our heavy spacecraft."

"You know, exploring the universe, the biggest fuel consumption is the process of getting rid of the earth's gravity from the ground to entering space. If a traditional spacecraft goes directly to Mars, most of its loads are actually fuel, such as a Mars rover. , a total of only a few hundred kilograms, but the total launch weight may exceed a thousand tons."

"If we build a space station in space, then our heavy spacecraft can not need to consider storing enough fuel to fly to Mars and return, but only need to store enough fuel to reach the space station, so this can increase the distance of the spacecraft from the ground. load, and then go to the space station to refuel and go to Mars.”

"Even, we can also launch some of the equipment and living materials that we need to use after landing on Mars to the space station in advance. After the spacecraft reaches space, we can bring these equipment and go to Mars together."

Li Mu scratched his head: "I'm afraid that 50 billion dollars is not enough for your project. I'm afraid adding zero is almost the same?"

Elon Musk said: "If you just look at the investment, it does require a huge amount of capital, but the project itself can still make money."

Li Mu asked: "Make money from rocket launches? How many times do you have to launch to support your project?"

Elon Musk said: "It's not just about making money from commercial launches, but also through equipment leasing and space services. If we can build a space station in space, maybe China, the United States, Russia, and the European Union will all need space exploration in the future. We provide a certain amount of help, which is also money, you can understand it as turning the space station into a hotel, and it is the most expensive hotel."

"By the way." Elon Musk added: "Actually, the most profitable business is the commercial manned spaceflight business. For example, a three-day trip to space in our spaceship costs 50 million US dollars per person, which is not too much. At that time, we only need to design a manned capsule and bring the manned capsule on the launch mission, and we can make a lot of money.”

Li Mu smiled: "Are you this space ride business?"

"That's pretty much what it means." Seeing Li Mu laughing out loud, Elon Musk hurriedly explained: "Mr. Li, don't think it's a joke, it's not! I tell you, there are many billionaires who are eager to get a job In space, their money is too much to spend, and there is no commercial service on earth that they can't afford or enjoy. At this time, if commercial manned spaceflight is opened, they will definitely feel very much. Interest, then you can make a lot of money from this business alone.”

Li Mu looked at Elon Musk and said seriously, "I think you're just fooling me. As far as the commercial space travel business you describe, I don't think you'll be able to get it in another fifteen years."

In fact, until Li Mu was reborn, he had never heard of anyone Elon Musk really sent into space.

Elon Musk said very sincerely: "Mr. Li, if I follow the current rhythm, it will take a long time for me. I need to wait for Tesla to succeed, PayPal to realize cash, and then I can use it to support SpaceX after I have a lot of cash. This also means that SpaceX may have been idling for more than a dozen years, unable to gain speed."

After speaking, Elon Musk looked at Li Mu earnestly and said seriously: "But, Mr. Li, if you are willing to invest in this project, then I believe that it will develop rapidly, and it may even be possible within the next ten years. It will be realized, even if it is impossible to immigrate to Mars within ten years, at least we can send people to Mars and then bring them back.”

Li Mu suddenly remembered the "Mars Rescue" he had seen before, not to mention colonizing Mars. If he could build the Mars base in the movie, it is estimated that hundreds of billions of dollars would be smashed into it. s things.

If this project can really speed up, then maybe in a few years, the SpaceX space station will indeed be able to achieve, and even manned trips to Mars.

But how meaningful is this? It is impossible for this project to make money at all. Whether the commercial operation is good or bad is nothing more than a question of whether the investor loses more or less.

Moreover, if a private company registered in the United States engages in space stations and space exploration, the U.S. government will not subsidize it.

Not only that, the U.S. government and even NASA have not been so supportive in recent years. It is said that the budget is pitiful, and it will take at least 2020 to return to the moon.

Rather than messing around with things in space and Mars, it's better to get this thing right on Earth first.

However, before Li Mu declined Musk, he suddenly thought of a very serious question.

The question is, what is the purpose of making money and making money in the end?

There is an upper limit to the material life of human society. If a person’s assets exceed billions of dollars, he can basically spend freely on the earth. He can buy a large number of villas, islands, private jets, and private yachts all over the country. Even a cruise ship, with a few hundred million dollars to make a trust fund, even if it does not do any business, it is enough to live on the interest for a lifetime.

After you die, you can put all your inheritance into the trust fund. If you leave a billion dollars for future generations, let each of them take one million dollars from the fund every month. Even so, one offspring a year is Just $12 million.

The key billion US dollars is in the capital market, and it is not a problem to achieve a 10% rate of return every year. That is to say, the annual profit alone is 100 million US dollars, which is enough for nine offspring to lie down and win for a lifetime.

If the asset reaches tens of billions of dollars, it is basically impossible to spend it.

As for himself, the listing of Muye Technology and Taobao Technology, coupled with the growth of a lot of other businesses that have been invested in, may be worth more than one or two trillion US dollars in the future. How can it be possible to spend so much money?

It's better to take out a part and do something big that other rich people can't do.

The plan to go to Mars may indeed cost a lot of money, but even so, it will at best bring the second richest person in the world closer to everything.

That being the case, why not burn some money and give it a try? Right to play...