While NASA’s space missions focuses on geological research, the theme of these different projects by Elon and Ressi was to see if humans could live on Mars. “The public could get excited about it, and that would result in funding from NASA and an imperative to take things to the next step,” Elon said.57
But Elon and Ressi were no space engineers, so they needed help. In August 2001, one month after they came up with the idea to do space, Elon contacted the aerospace consultant Jim Cantrell.
“I had the top down on my car, so all I could make out was that some guy named Ian Musk was saying that he was an Internet billionaire and needed to talk to me,” Cantrell said. “I’m pretty sure he used that phrase, ‘Internet billionaire.’ I told him I’d call him back when I got home, but when I called, I got a fax machine. I said, ‘Sure, Internet billionaire.’ Then my phone rang. I asked him what was with the fax machine.”
“I don’t want you to know my cell number,” Elon replied. “I want to change mankind’s outlook on being a multi-planetary species. Can we meet this weekend? I have a private jet, I’ll fly to your house.”
“No, I’ll meet you at the airport in Salt Lake,” Cantrell replied. He wanted to meet in a secure environment where Elon couldn’t bring a weapon.
After the meeting ended, Cantrell wasn’t suspicious anymore. Cantrell decided to help Elon to put a team together and see how much the project would cost.278 They talked to contractors who could build the Mars Oasis for a comparatively low cost. But to fulfill the mission they needed more than one rocket, or launch vehicle in aerospace-industry parlance. If the first rocket failed, they wanted to be on the safe side and be able to launch another rocket.288
The cheapest American rocket was Boeing’s Delta II. With a launch cost of $50 million, they thought it was too expensive. So they began a global hunt for cheap rockets. “We went everywhere: France, small private contractors in Russia, the Pasadena Jet Propulsion Lab, the people who have the X Prize,” Ressi said.60
In France, they met with Arianespace – the European organization that launched several of the world’s satellites. “We rented the penthouse suite of one of the major hotels in Paris, across from the Louvre,” Ressi said. “We had the whole top floor, usually rented by the sultan of Brunei or something. Elon and I invited all our friends. It was basically about sixty hours of meetings and thirty hours of partying.”278
One peculiar thing Elon learned in Paris was that you first might think all the women are good looking. “Actually if you look carefully, they aren’t really so good looking, they just think they are,” Elon said. “They walk proudly, dress with style and act as if they own the world. Women are lucky, they can make themselves look better. We [men] have to settle for the way we look.”81,115
It turned out also the European rockets were too expensive, so they decided to head east. In 2001, they began traveling to Russia to negotiate if they could use the Dnepr rocket, named after the Dnepr river. The Dnepr was a converted Russian SS-18 Satan intercontinental ballistic missile developed in the 1960s. An intercontinental ballistic missile is typically designed to deliver one or more nuclear weapons and each Satan could deliver ten nuclear warheads. “It was very weird going late 2001–2002 to Russia and saying ‘I want to buy two of your biggest rockets, but you can keep the nukes,’” Elon said. “They thought I was crazy, but, I did have money. So, that was okay.”63
The Russian economy collapsed in 1998, so the economy was even worse than after the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991. “This was when it was still the Wild West over there,” Ressi said. “I mean, there were like dead people on the side of the road. We got pulled over multiple times, at gunpoint, and had to bribe the police. No reason. Just ‘Give us money.’“278
They went through several negotiations at secret locations, including a negotiation with a general, who had lost a front tooth, in a room with padded walls. As you may suspect, they had to consume vast amounts of vodka during these negotiations. “We’d all go in this little room and every single person had his own bottle in front of him,” Ressi said. “They’d toast every two minutes, which means 20 or 30 toasts an hour.”
“To space!”
“To America!”
“To America in space!”
“I finally looked over at Elon and Jim and they were passed out on the table. Then I passed out myself.”278
The Russians also visited them in Los Angeles. “We can’t continue unless you give us $5000 in cash,” the Russians demanded. Elon and Ressi heard this on a Saturday because the Russians needed money for a wild night out. But how do you come up with $5000 in Los Angeles on a Saturday? Fortunately, Ressi knew the manager of a hotel, and he told the manager they needed all the cash the hotel had.278
Before the last visit to Russia, Ressi had become tired of the Russians and remained home. Elon traveled on his own with $21 million to buy three rockets. When he arrived, the Russians had changed their mind. Now they wanted to sell only one rocket for $21 million. Elon argued with them. “Oh, little boy, you don’t have the money?” one Russian replied, and Elon thought it was time to begin looking elsewhere for rockets.278
These trips to Russia affected Elon in a traumatic way. “I would pay 20 million dollars not to spend six months in Russia,” Elon replied when asked if he wanted to travel to space as a space tourist with a Russian rocket.
It was perhaps just as well the deal with the Russians didn’t happen. Elon realized a deal would be too risky since it involved several parties across different countries. The Russians owned the rocket, but they had to ship it to Ukraine for refurbishment and conversion to launch vehicle. Then they had to ship it back to Russia and towards Kazakhstan where the launch took place.365 Kazakhstan used to be a part of the Soviet Union and is the home of the Baikonur Cosmodrome base where all the Russian historical rockets launched. When the Soviet Union dissolved, it was too expensive to move the base to Russia, so the Russian government leases it until 2050.
If one of these parties was delayed, the entire mission had to be postponed 26 months. When you launch a rocket to Mars, you want the shortest possible travel distance from Earth to Mars. The distance to Mars from Earth is constantly changing because Mars and Earth orbit the sun at different speeds. Earth is closer to the Sun and gets around the Sun more quickly than Mars, and both planets have elliptical orbits. Because of these factors, you have a launch window of one month every 26 months.365,395
“I think we can build a rocket ourselves,” Ressi said.278 Elon had thought this thought before. He wondered why they had to buy rockets from Russia when we don’t buy anything else from Russia – except Vodka. “If you look at Russian rocketry, since the fall of the Soviet Union, there’s really been no significant developments,” Elon said. “The technology has barely progressed.”351 Why were the Russian rockets so cheap? Elon did some engineering calculations.364 “I looked at it and said, I’ll be damned – that’s why he’s been borrowing all my books,” Cantrell said. “He’d been borrowing all my college textbooks on rocketry and propulsion. You know, whenever anybody asks Elon how he learned to build rockets, he says, ‘I read books.’ Well, it’s true.”278