Hondas in Space

To build a rocket from scratch in less than three years is no easy task, but it helps if speed is a core value. Yet it is not speed for speed's sake: Rather than toiling for years on a part until it is perfect, SpaceX's approach is to build as quickly as possible and then, in the words of Tom Mueller, VP of propulsion development, "test the crap out of it." This commitment to fast prototyping and testing has been a constant theme through Falcon I's development. For example, the use of carbon composite instead of aluminum in some parts allows them to be assembled in three days instead of two to three weeks.

Getting something out there fast inevitably leads to failures -- but that's to be expected at SpaceX. When something goes wrong, "first of all, there's a good lashing," jokes Musk. Getting serious, he says, "There's a silly notion that failure's not an option at NASA. Failure is an option here. If things are not failing, you are not innovating enough." In fact, says Kevin Brogan, a senior design engineer, "the first time we had a major engine failure Elon was kind of excited. It gave him some street cred." Told this story, Musk smiles wanly. "If I had the option of not having it blow up, I'd rather not," he says. "But it was pretty cool."

Sometimes, the SpaceX team has found, the quickest way to get a part or material to the standards required is to make it themselves. Musk hired Reagan to build a $10 million in-house machine shop where parts are made quicker and cheaper -- like a $25,000 valve that now costs SpaceX $11,000. The investment may or may not ultimately pay off, but for Musk, it's where innovation comes out of necessity. "The pace of execution is really the fundamental [advantage]," he says. "I consider it almost synonymous with competitiveness."

The third part of SpaceX's equation is the "better" part, and that is where the team comes in. Although SpaceX is growing at 15% a month -- it's now at 88 employees -- Musk still sees its limited size as a plus. "A small group of very technically strong people will always beat a large group of moderately strong people," he says. It's a lesson he learned at PayPal, where 30 engineers went up against Citibank, which was trying to develop a competing product.

Back in 2002, while Musk was teaching himself propulsion, he was also bringing together the smartest minds in aerospace. In part from the contacts he made through these "feasibility studies," Musk cherry-picked the best, brightest, and most bored from other companies. His selling point was that they'd have the freedom to actually do their job -- build a rocket -- rather than sitting in daylong meetings, waiting months for a parts request to wend its way through a bureaucracy, or fending off internal political attacks. "This is the first job where I'm not bored," says Brogan, who worked at TRW for five years before coming to SpaceX. At TRW, Brogan says, he had to toil for years on a program that everyone knew was doomed because of a change in government priorities, but had already been paid for. "That program really destroyed my soul," he says.

At SpaceX, there are only five employees who don't have direct responsibility for a particular component or technology, and that personal connection is a key motivator. "I have friends who are happy at their jobs and who ask me why I work so much," says Brian Bjelde, a young avionics engineer formerly at NASA. "They're working on some component that may or may not fly. They'll analyze it for four years, and it may go on a spacecraft that launches in 2015. That's just not me." To encourage openness, Musk hosts a regular Friday lunch where anyone can ask questions about where SpaceX is going. "Here, it's fourth down and you've got three yards to go," says Brogan. "At TRW, we didn't know if there was even a football."

SpaceX operates as a nearly horizontal organization. Musk is unquestionably the boss, and there are seven vice presidents, all of whom are hands-on specialists in things such as propulsion or avionics. There are no paper-pushing managers and no organization charts. Until recently, when the company brought in a head of human resources, Musk and the VPs interviewed every single job candidate, and everyone had veto power. While pure intelligence is an absolute must -- the team delights in coming up with mental challenges during interviews -- it's equally important that candidates disdain the political and embrace SpaceX's underdog culture. "I think it's really unacceptable here for anyone to bear a grudge," Musk says. "It's a showstopper issue." So far, the approach to hiring has worked well. In over two years, one person returned to school, two have been fired, and one person was recalled to a previous job.