Eventually my collection of 800+ paperbacks got unwieldy to lug around so I donated it to a university whose library was building a serious archival collection of the genre.
Fast forward to earlier this year. When Elon Musk took SpaceX public via IPO, I waited 2-3 weeks and had my broker buy 100 shares for my modest portfolio of equities.
My interest isn’t speculative, I don’t watch the SpaceX share price daily. I like being part of the most-successful-to-date company building space hardware and planning to colonize the Moon and Mars. I won’t live to see all of it happen but I’ve made a bet where my heart is, and that feels good.
So recently Tesla demonstrated a roadster that can do all kinds of nearly magical things, at least some of which have practical implications. Am I bummed? Not even a little.
This is Musk dreaming and then doing the engineering to make it happen. And in my small way I’m along for the ride … yippie!
Later … I just figured out how the electric cars fit into Musk’s dream. Internal combustion wouldn’t work on Mars as there is too little atmospheric oxygen to support combustion. On Mars IC engines would have to carry tanks of both fuel and oxidizer, likely batteries would be more expedient.
