Once he has a goal, his next step is to learn as much about the topic at hand as possible from as many sources as possible. He is by far the single smartest person that I have ever worked with, period. I can’t estimate his IQ but he is very very intelligent. And not the typical egg-head kind of smart. He has a real applied mind. He literally sucks the knowledge and experience out of people that he is around. He borrowed all of my college texts on rocket propulsion when we first started working together in 2001. We also hired as many of my colleagues in the rocket and spacecraft business that were willing to consult with him. It was like a gigantic spaceapalooza. At that point we were not talking about building a rocket ourselves, only launching a privately funded mission to Mars. I found out later that he was talking to a bunch of other people about rocket designs and collaborating on some spreadsheet level systems designs for launchers. Once our dealings with the Russians fell apart, he decided to build his own rocket and this was the genesis of SpaceX.
I knew he read textbooks, but I didn’t know exactly which textbooks: Rocket Propulsion Elements, Aerothermodynamics of Gas Turbine and Rocket Propulsion, Fundamentals of Astrodynamics, and the International Reference Guide to Space Launch Systems.
For anyone interested in adding to that list for their own reading, Space Propulsion Analysis and Design goes over much the same material as Rocket Propulsion Elements, but with expanded sections on electric and nuclear rocketry.
I doubt that there’s anything to this talk of a propellantless EM drive, but if there is, Elon Musk is going to be seriously pissed.
Actually, he’ll be peculiarly well placed to take advantage of it. He has two big companies, one of which specializes in making aerospace products and one of which specializes in making high powered electrical products…
I feel like any old-school science-fiction fan should have Fundamentals of Astrodynamics on the shelf. And a slide-rule on their desk.
The fastest way to become educated on launch systems is to read the failure analyses…