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Of Mice And Musk: A SpaceX Odyssey
Elon Musk has dreamed of a human colony on Mars since he was a young man. Today, his SpaceX company is taking the first steps toward achieving that dream.
As Ashlee Vance tells it, one wall of Elon Musk’s office at SpaceX headquarters in Hawthorne, California, contains two posters of Mars. On the left is Mars as it exists today – a frozen, lifeless orb. On the right is Musk’s vision of Mars as it could be — a happy place inhabited by humans who frolic on verdant continents surrounded by oceans.
“I would like to die thinking that humanity has a bright future,” he tells Vance while eating cookies and cream with sprinkles on top. “If we can solve sustainable energy and be well on our way to becoming a multi-planetary species with a self-sustaining civilization on another planet—to cope with a worst-case scenario happening and extinguishing human consciousness— then I think that would be really good.” No one has ever accused Elon Musk of thinking too small.
At the turn of the 21st century, Musk had two Martian fantasies. One was to send a colony of mice to the Red Planet and bring them back again, along with their interplanetary babies. The other involved building a greenhouse on Mars and letting Earthlings see the plants inside grow over the internet. Each venture required at least one if not two rocket ships.
He and a coterie of friends traveled twice to Moscow, once in 2001 and again in 2002, trying to purchase surplus Russian rockets that could be refurbished for the Martian missions. The first time did not go well. Recalls Jim Cantrell, one of the team that traveled to Moscow with Musk, “One of their chief designers spit on me and Elon because he thought we were full of shit.” On the second excursion, Musk became convinced the Russians he was meeting with were only interested in fleecing a gullible American with too much money and too few brains.
SpaceX CEO Elon Musk inside the Dragon V2 [Source: SpaceX]
On the way home from the second failed mission, Musk astonished his team by announcing, “Hey, guys, I think we can build this rocket ourselves.” In June 2002, Space Exploration Technologies, popularly known as SpaceX, was formed to build a cheaper rocket that could carry small payloads into space for paying clients on an average of once a month. The only problem? It had no rocket.
Such trifles were never matters to hold Elon Musk back. He assembled a team of committed rocket engineers and set about accomplishing, with millions, what NASA spent billions doing. Musk’s principle talent, apart from concocting outrageously impossible dreams, is finding people to work for him who are ready, willing and eager to give up all semblance of a normal life in exchange for insane working hours in remote locations. One test launching area was set up in the middle of Texas and another on far away Kwajalein Island, the largest island in an atoll between Guam and Hawaii that is part of the Marshall Islands.
“I would like to die thinking that humanity has a bright future”
SpaceX CEO, Elon Musk
Musk is not a man without a sense of humor. He dubbed his new rocket Falcon 1, paying homage to the Millennium Falcon of Star Wars fame. On its first flight on March 24, 2006, it crashed back to Earth after only 25 seconds. SpaceX employees dutifully donned scuba gear to retrieve some of the pieces from the ocean and set about rebuilding for another attempt.
Musk responded by hiring more engineers and starting work on a brand new rocket, the Falcon 9, that featured one large central rocket surrounded by 8 smaller rockets. Despite the failure of Falcon 1, Musk was already busy positioning the company to bid on NASA contracts to resupply the International Space Station.
On September 1, 2008, Falcon 1 flew its first successful mission. SpaceX was a viable commercial company at last but one that was rapidly going broke. At the end of 2008, Musk knew he would have to choose between SpaceX and Tesla. Alone, one of them might survive. Together? The odds were, both would fail. Musk worried that Tesla would be bought out by one of the Big Three automakers and become just a small part of a giant company.
Later in 2008, Tesla was within hours of defaulting on its payroll obligations. If that happened, Musk’s personal fortune would be gone, along with Tesla and SpaceX. He asked for help from venture capital group VantagePoint but was rebuffed. That’s when Musk put all his chips on red and let them ride.
Source: SpaceX
With all of his dreams and aspirations on the line, Musk executed a colossal bluff. He told investors he would put in $40,000,000 of his own fortune to keep the business going — $40,000,000 he didn’t have. Based on his assurances, other investors agreed to put up $20,000,000 more in financing and the crisis passed. A few weeks later, NASA awarded SpaceX a $1.6 billion contract to do twleve ISS re-supply missions.
Antonio Gracias, a Tesla and SpaceX investor and one of Musk’s closest friends, watched all of this at close hand. He says 2008 told him everything he would ever need to know about Musk’s character. “He has the ability to work harder and endure more stress than anyone I’ve ever met,” Gracias says. “What he went through in 2008 would have broken anyone else. Most people who are under that sort of pressure fray. Their decisions go bad. Elon gets hyperrational. He’s still able to make very clear, long-term decisions. The harder it gets, the better he gets.”
Today, SpaceX launches an average of one rocket a month, carrying payloads for many companies and several nations. Its prices undercut those of Boeing, Lockheed Martin, and Orbital Science by a wide margin. Many of its competitors rely on Russian and other foreign suppliers but SpaceX makes its machines from scratch in the U.S.
Its clientele includes Canadian, European, and Asian customers and it has more than 50 flights planned over the coming years worth more than $5 billion. The company remains privately owned, with Musk as the largest shareholder. SpaceX is profitable and is estimated to be worth $12 billion.
Falcon 9 discovery launch from Feb. 2014 at Cape Canaveral, FL [Image credit: SpaceX]
The Falcon 9 has gone from a fantasy to SpaceX’s workhorse. Painted pure white with only an American flag and the SpaceX logo adorning its sides, there’s nothing particularly flashy looking about the Falcon 9. It’s just an elegant, purposeful machine. And to think that for a period of weeks just a few years ago, it’s ability to lead mankind into the dawn of commercial space travel almost died before it was ever born, thanks to a bluff so bold and so daring, it would leave most of us breathless.
Jimmy Buffett once sang, “Read dozens of books about heroes and crooks, and I learned much from both of their styles.” Which one is Elon Musk? Read Ashlee Vance’s book and make up your own mind.
Source: Bloomberg
Elon Musk
Why automakers keep turning down Elon Musk’s Tesla Full Self-Driving offer
Elon Musk confirms no automaker has ever accepted Tesla’s offer to license Full Self-Driving software.
Elon Musk gave a brief answer on X Monday that confirmed that Tesla’s standing offer to license Full Self-Driving to other automakers still has zero takers. Sawyer Merritt wrote that “Tesla has for years openly invited other automakers to license FSD. None of them have accepted,” responding to a prediction from Boom Supersonic founder Blake Scholl that Tesla would eventually open FSD the way it opened its Supercharger network to rival brands. Musk’s reply to Merritt was one word: “Exactly.”
It is not the first time Musk has made this point. He said something similar in November, when he called legacy automakers reluctance to adopt FSD “crazy,” and Tesla has floated the offer publicly since at least 2021. Scholl’s prediction touches on something real. Once NACS became the de facto charging standard, adoption from Ford, GM, Rivian and others followed within about a year. FSD licensing was supposed to work the same way once Tesla built enough of a lead that switching made sense for everyone.
Tesla has for years openly invited other automakers to license FSD. None of them have accepted. https://t.co/kgz4idpoUM
— Sawyer Merritt (@SawyerMerritt) September 22, 2026
The case for licensing now is stronger than it was two years ago. Waymo and Zoox are logging hundreds of thousands of unsupervised autonomous miles, along with Tesla’s own Robotaxi fleet. Every automaker still selling driver assist systems that lag FSD has given the robotaxi conversation to Tesla, Waymo and Zoox by default. Licensing FSD would let a GM or a Ford compete on the same field without spending a decade and billions of dollars building a stack from scratch, the same argument Tesla made when it opened the Supercharger network to bring more EVs onto its chargers.
But FSD is not a connector standard. As one reply to Musk’s post pointed out, licensing FSD is not a software license the way NACS was a plug spec. It requires adopting Tesla’s eight camera layout and its onboard compute architecture, meaning a licensee’s cars would effectively become Tesla hardware wearing someone else’s badge. That is the visible obstacle. The less visible one is data. A licensed FSD stack would report back the same telemetry Tesla collects from its own fleet, giving Tesla a continuous read on how a competitor’s cars are actually driven, where they struggle, and how often drivers intervene. For an automaker trying to build its own autonomy program, or simply trying to keep its build quality and safety record private, handing Tesla that visibility could be a bigger cost than the hardware bill. It is the reason the Supercharger comparison only goes so far. Opening a charging plug cost Tesla very little. Opening FSD would cost a rival something it cannot get back.
Tesla has reopened reservations for its long-delayed next-generation Roadster, asking buyers for a $50,000 deposit just days before an October 1 reveal event in Waco, Texas. The move revives a reservation process first launched in 2017 and later paused when Tesla pulled pricing from its website in 2021.
The reservation page requires an immediate $5,000 credit-card payment, described as fully refundable, followed by a $45,000 wire transfer due within 10 days, which is identical to what was expected previously. Reservations are not considered final until the wire clears.
The structure matches the 2017 terms Tesla used when it first collected deposits after unveiling a prototype. Tesla has not published a confirmed retail price or production start date on the order page.
Go buy a Roadster pic.twitter.com/n7rhouAmIS
— TESLARATI (@Teslarati) September 21, 2026
The October 1 event is scheduled in Waco, about 90 minutes north of Tesla’s Austin headquarters and near SpaceX’s McGregor rocket test site. Tesla sent invitations to existing reservation holders and posted a “Go for launch” teaser on September 12.
The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) established a temporary flight restriction over the McGregor area from September 18 through October 2, consistent with plans for a demonstration involving SpaceX-designed cold-gas thrusters. Elon Musk has previously described the optional package as enabling extreme acceleration or brief hovering. Tesla has said the event will include pricing, specifications, and production targets.
The second-generation Roadster was first shown in November 2017 during Tesla’s Semi launch. Musk promised production in 2020, with claimed performance of 0-60 mph in 1.9 seconds, more than 250 mph top speed, and roughly 620 miles of range.
Those targets have slipped repeatedly.
Tesla later pointed to 2022, 2023, 2024, and 2025-2026 before indicating production would not begin until 2027 or 2028 at Gigafactory Texas. Design work has continued, with reports of a sharper, Cybertruck-influenced look replacing the original curvy prototype.
Original reservation holders who paid $50,000 in 2017, or $250,000 for the Founders Series, have waited nearly nine years without a production car. Some high-profile customers canceled. Tesla’s decision to reopen orders now, after previously shutting them down, tests whether new buyers will commit substantial funds before seeing a finalized production vehicle. The October 1 event is intended to answer remaining questions about what those buyers will actually receive and when.
Tesla’s Full Self-Driving (Supervised) is heading to Czechia after the Czech Ministry of Transport recognised the Dutch RDW’s provisional type approval, making the country the seventh EU member state to clear the system for public roads. Tesla Europe announced on 21 September 2026 that “FSD Supervised is now approved in Czechia” and that rollout “will begin soon.”
The decision marks a notable reversal. Earlier in 2026, Prague had declined to automatically recognise the Netherlands’ April approval, citing concerns over speed-limit compliance, traffic-sign recognition and driver-attention monitoring, and arguing that a coordinated EU approach was preferable. Officials said months of expert review, talks with Tesla and other member states, and real-world data from countries already using the system resolved those issues.
🚨 Tesla FSD heading to Czechia 🇨🇿 pic.twitter.com/mkzlM9QjrB
— TESLARATI (@Teslarati) September 21, 2026
“Safety remains the top priority,” the ministry stated.
FSD Supervised remains a Level 2 driver-assistance system: the driver must stay engaged and is legally responsible. Eligible vehicles need AI4, the company’s most up-to-date hardware version. Tesla is expected to push the feature over the air in the coming days, following the pattern seen after earlier national approvals.
Europe’s rollout began when Dutch regulator RDW issued a provisional EU type approval on 10 April 2026 after extensive testing. Mutual recognition then produced a rapid cascade: Lithuania (20 May), Estonia (29 May), Denmark (9 June), Belgium (10 June) and Slovenia (7 September). Czechia now completes that list of seven.
The approvals cover only a modest share of the EU population, but they add political weight ahead of a 6 October vote by the Technical Committee on Motor Vehicles. A qualified majority, at least 15 of 27 member states representing 65 percent of the EU population, could open the remaining markets, including large ones such as Germany, France, Italy and Spain that have so far preferred to wait for a bloc-wide decision.
For Czech Tesla owners, the immediate prize is access to the same supervised highway and city driving already available in the other six countries. For Tesla, each new market generates additional European driving data and strengthens the case that FSD Supervised can operate safely under the continent’s varied road rules. The Czech approval is therefore both a local milestone and another incremental step toward a wider European launch.
Why automakers keep turning down Elon Musk’s Tesla Full Self-Driving offer
Tesla Roadster is available for order once again following brief hold
