I think even the luckiest among us would admit that this has been a weird kind of year. A sort of “ex-girlfriend-just-unfriended-you-on-Facebook” kind of year, where you aren’t even sure what to think of some things. A mixed bag, and no less for me than for anybody else. And I might want to write about that, at some point - maybe even later in this post - but what I want to write about right now is what I saw last night, and how that made me feel. Because what I saw was inspirational, and maybe even more so to me than to most people. A quintessentially “Adam-y” moment, in some ways, that hit me harder than I think I thought it would. It wasn’t something that I was expecting or had been anticipating. I don’t even remember how I knew it was happening, nor was I really planning on turning in into it until I saw it happen. But once I saw it, I watched it over and over and over. I stared at the same YouTube video, slack jawed, for 3 hours.
I’m talking, of course, about the launch and recovery of the Spacex “Falcon Heavy” rocket launch system. The bare facts are these: SpaceX - a private company - launched their heaviest rocket yet. They launched it successfully, the first try, and managed to fly a payload, consisting mostly of Elon Musk’s own personal sports car, directly into an orbit which will take it out past Mars to the asteroid belt. *Then*, as if that wasn’t enough, they turned two of the three boosters around and *landed* them - flawlessly, and in tandem - upright on small launch pads.
There are so many things that were perfect about this. Getting real employees to narrate the show - people with obvious gleams of joy in their eyes. Playing David Bowie over the car loudspeakers. The synchronized landings. The press conference, afterwards, where Elon talked about how it was the most amazing thing he’d ever seen, and looked like a kid who’d won the lottery. The “Don’t Panic” sign on the dash (Hitchhiker’s Guide, for those who don’t know). Stephen Colbert put it best when he said that Elon was “King Nerd”.
For some reason, I found this all terribly moving. Laugh, if you like. I think it’s because - for one brief shining moment - I felt two things: 1) that things might be all right, after all, and 2) that it was OK to be *me*. For one moment, I felt a kinship to this man. Elon and I are not all that different. Sure, he is way way more successful and awesome than I am. But it’s sorta like if you’re a second string quarterback for a high school football team and you watch that Eagles quarterback catch the pass in the Super Bowl. You might be very different, but you are both quarterbacks. Elon and I, we are both nerds. We are both white, male nerds. We like Douglas Adams. We stutter at news conferences. We smile and chuckle at the slightly wrong time. We’re both divorced.
Sometimes, as I’ve grown older, I’ve felt like a bit of a loser. I feel like more should have happened. Sometimes. Most of the time, I feel OK. But - real talk - this was a tough year in a lot of ways. Watching that team of people land those rockets on those pads - well, it felt like maybe the more optimistic of the science fiction writers that I like to read - like Jack McDevitt - well, they might be *right*. Everything might not be perfect, but neither are we heading towards some kind of apocalypse. We may actually - *I* may actually - get to go into space, or to the moon. Maybe not - but my odds, you must admit, went way way up. I read he wants to use the rockets to fly people from New York to Shanghai in 45 minutes, with a view of the curvature of the earth along the way. I’m in.
I particularly liked this quote from him - “It’s silly, and fun. But silly and fun things are important.” He was talking, of course, about flying a David Bowie car into orbit. Silly and fun things *are* important. It *means* something to me that, when we had the chance, humanity put a mannequin in a red sports car into orbit and played David Bowie accompanied by a quote from Douglas Adams. It matters to me that now, this time we live in isn’t just the Shitty Trump Era, but it’s also the Fly Cars Into Space Era. That means something. It matters that this man achieved this - with us, on behalf of us, for himself but also for us. He didn’t do it to be nice. He didn’t do it because he’s a great guy. He just did it because that’s what it means to be human - we do things. It’s especially what it means to be an engineer - and make no mistake, he still is one - and a nerd. We *do* things. We *get things done*. And it’s *fun*. It’s *good*. It matters, and it’s OK to be proud of. Not everybody likes Elon Musk. It would be a serious mistake to think it’s all been fun and games for him. He was mercilessly bullied as a child. His divorce was a messy disaster. His kids are a mixed bag. As rich and awesome as he is, he has good days and bad days, I assure you. He has a reputation for yelling at people sometimes. He cares too much, and then not enough. He probably even has days where he thinks he’s shit. Even now. Because that, too, is what it’s like to be human.
But - and this is the thing - as broken and stupid as we meat sacks can be sometimes, sometimes we also form a 7,000 person team and fly a goddamn rocket 120 miles into space and then land it on a pad the size of a large house. Two of them. At the same time.
My favorite video of his - of SpaceX’s - the one I’ll show my kid, if I get around to having one, when they get old enough - is their “blooper reel”, entitled “How Not To Land An Orbital Booster”. Set to Monty Python music, it is a compilation of all the times they failed. 15-odd videos of rockets blowing up. And they’re *proud* of it. They made a video about it, spent time and money showing you all the times that they screwed up, laughing at themselves, and the human condition. It’s *funny*. If you laugh, the failure doesn’t hurt you. It only hurts if you let it.
I don’t worship Elon Musk. I don’t envy him, even. If I met him, I’d want to chat about orbital boosters. We’d have a fun time shooting the shit about old Saturday morning cartoons, maybe, until he got too busy and then I’d just shake his hand, wish him well and go on about my day. I don’t need to be like him because I *already am like him*. He’s just harder working, luckier, and more focused. I will do great things too, fun things, because that is just what I do. Maybe I’ll get lucky, and everything will be awesome. Maybe I won’t, and it won’t. But I won’t stop making stuff - *we* won’t stop making stuff. We *will* go to Mars, and we *will* cure cancer, and I will write some new video games, and take new pictures, and go on new bike rides. And I will do those things - we will do those things - because that is what we do, like fish swimming or a bear riding a bicycle - it’s what we do. Already, in the news conference, people were asking about when we go to Mars, and Musk was like, “hey, you know, we gotta do this thing first, then this other thing, but yeah, maybe 3 or 4 years, a few more maybe”. And hell it might end up being 20, but some way, some how, this guy is gonna do it, and then other people will do it, and then maybe, someday, I, or my kids, or both of us, will walk on Mars.
And that makes me proud to be me.