PART 1 Summary
With the establishment of Space Exploration Technologies, namely, the SpaceX in suburb Los Angeles, Musk began to formalize his audacious plan for a game-changer. Musk envisioned it to produce better and cheaper versions that would upend former assumption about rockets and gain an edge in the market.
At the inception of Musk's plan, SpaceX was scheduled to reach fruition in November 2003 and a trek to Mars was slated for a decade later. Ebay's deal to buy Paypal came in very handy. This episode was a mixed bag for Musk. He lost his first child who was ten weeks old then. Instead of wallowing in sorrow, he moved on and threw himself at SpaceX.
The burgeoning development of SpaceX has much to do with the recruitment of a collection of talent, including an all-star executive crew, Musk's loyal assistant and go-to person Mary Beth Brown, as well as a string of overachieving young engineers. Now and again, the group encountered zillions of technical problems and bottlenecks. However, this tight-knit family were never held up and worked diligently, hardly taking any time off.
Although the first launch of SpaceX is far from full-fledged, Elon Musk, in his trademark style, has already made a blueprint to ship rockets to market.
PART 2 Expressions
1. Musk, by contrast, would apply some of the start-up techniques he’d learned in Silicon Valley to run SpaceX lean and fast.
1.thin in a healthy and attractive way
He was lean, tall and muscular.
2.Lean meat does not have much fat on it
3.A lean organization, company etc uses only as much money and as many people as it needs, so that nothing is wasted
2. Later, Justine chalked up Musk’s reaction to a defense mechanism that he’d learned from years of suffering as a kid.
chalk up sth to sth :to explain (something) by stating its cause: to say that (something) was caused by (something)
chalk it up to bad timing
·Her early mistakes can be chalked up to inexperience.
3. The rank-and-file engineers at SpaceX tended to be young, male overachievers.
The rank and file: the ordinary members of an organization rather than the leaders
The rank and file of the party had lost confidence in the leadership.
Rank-and-file (a.) the rank-and-file members of the trade union
Overachiever: one who achieves success over and above the standard or expected level especially at an early age
(o.) underachiever
4. If you’ve got other kids and obligations, then wallowing in sadness does no good for anyone around you.
wallow: [ˈwɒləʊ]
1. if an animal or person wallows, it rolls around in mud, water etc for pleasure or to keep cool
hippos wallowing in the mud
2. wallow in self-pity/ despair/ defeat etc: to seem to enjoy being sad etc, especially because you et sympathy from other people -- used to show disapproval
He'd been feeling sorry for himself, wallowing in self-pity.
5. He knew all the tricks and how to sneak up on people.
Sneak up on/ behind etc: to come near sb very quietly, so that they do not see you until you reach them
I wish you wouldn’t sneak up on me like that!
Sneak on sb: old-fashioned, informal, to tell someone such as a parent or teacher about sth that another person has done wrong, because you want to cause trouble for that person
A little brat named Oliver sneaked on me.
6. “In my mind, it was a boondoggle,” Hollman said.
[ˈbu:ndɒgl]
1:a braided cord worn by Boy Scouts as a neckerchief slide, hatband, or ornament
2:an officially organized plan or activity that is very complicated and wastes a lot of time, money and effort.
A bureaucratic boondoggle
The project is a complete boondoggle—over budget, behind schedule, and unnecessary.
PART 3 Thoughts
Musk did open up to a couple of close friends and expressed the depth of his misery. But for the most part, Justine read her husband right. He didn't see the value in grieving publicly. “It made me extremely sad to talk about it," Musk said. "I'm not sure why I'd want to talk about extremely sad events. It does no good for the future. If you've got other kids and obligations, then wallowing in sadness does no good for anyone around you. I'm not sure what should be done in such situations."
我特别理解Musk的这种性格，我自己有时候也是这样的，能说出来的伤痛都不是真正的伤痛，越是难过的时候越是以一种自欺欺人的方式在别人面前表现得坚强，然后一个人静静地躲在别人看不到的地方自我疗伤，如果有一天可以说出那段过往的伤痛的时候，那表示自己真正可以放下那段过往了，然而在那之前，无论自己表现地多么强大，但偶尔在梦中或独自静坐的时候那种伤痛感会不由袭来吞噬自己。但这种性格并不意味着不需要周围人的陪伴和呵护，外表越是强悍的人可能越需要那种无声的陪伴和默默的照顾来抵御那些黑夜里的寒冷。
