Dumei Point Manor, early morning restaurant.

Janet finally walked in, ran to her aunt first, hugged Veronica and kissed her on the shoulder, then smiled and turned to Simon, gave a kiss on the man's head, and finally sat down next to the man.

The little guys at the dining table were unclear, so Jennifer, who was erect on the other side, was looking after the two children around him, couldn't help rolling his eyes. Veronica lowered her head slightly and pretended not to see her, helping her dine with Melbourne.

Janet picked up the tableware, drove away the waitress who was helping out, and then asked Simon: "How is the East Coast?"

Knowing what the woman was asking, Simon shook his head regretfully: "I just received the news that Skyve shut down the Pittsburgh Tribune."

"It's really a retreat to the end. Unfortunately, the Mellon family gave in so simply this time, so some of our subsequent plans cannot be implemented."

"Yes, there is an idiom in China called..."

"The rabbit dies and the fox is sad."

"Ha, you are at least eighth in Chinese now," Simon praised, and then said: "Anyway, the Mellon family suddenly retreated so thoroughly. We can't do anything else, otherwise it will make other old Qian families in the Federation more afraid and vigilant, and they cannot offend everyone at once."

Simon's original consideration was to take advantage of the opportunity of this Mellon Financial Group incident to take advantage of the situation to attack the Mellon family's interests in other industries, and to achieve the goal of weakening the Mellon family to the greatest extent.

The Mellon family suddenly gave up Mellon Finance completely over the weekend caught Simon off guard.

The other party did not forcefully resist Mellon's finance issue, and Simon could no longer be aggressive. After all, the Mellon family was not without foundation in Washington or Wall Street. If they were too ruthless for a while, it would inevitably make other old Qian families feel sad and even share the same hatred for the enemy.

I can only stop.

Simon stopped, and the Mellon family chose to give in. They just launched an investigation into Mellon family's loan fraud, and they might soon settle.

Not knowing what happened behind the scenes, Simon could only sigh at the decisiveness of the century-old Qian family.

Thinking of this, Simon said again: "Actually, the most regrettable thing is the stock market. Last week, Mellon Finance led Chevron, Alcoa and other companies to plummet for three consecutive days, but they failed to pull the Nasdaq down. I initially thought this was a good opportunity."

Jennifer opposite said: "Merron Finance companies are on the New York Stock Exchange, not Nasdaq."

Simon shrugged: "It's almost the same, it's the federal stock market after all."

Janet picked up the milk and took a sip. He probably felt that the milk today was not good. He poured some for Seattle next to him and gave it half to his man. He asked with a smile: "Are you anxious?"

"Of course, time is money," Simon also replied with a smile: "No matter how high the market value of the Igrit companies is, it is just a number now, and there is no more meaning. The high market of the entire Nasdaq market has had a negative impact on the layout of the Westeros system in the new technology field. At present, whether it is its own expansion or foreign mergers and acquisitions, the costs have increased significantly, resulting in many of our plans being suspended."

Janet said: "If you are in a hurry, we might as well expose it ourselves. Just sell a large amount of stocks and cash out the funds."

"The only thing that continues to put pressure on the Mellon family is stimulated is the old money class. If you reduce your holdings of technology stocks now, you will offend the whole world."

Janet waved his fork gently: "What a trouble."

"We'd better do nothing anyway."

Jennifer, opposite, listened to the conversation between the two and asked, "When will Soros start?"

"About May," Simon said, nodding, and said, "This is another opportunity. Soros' shorting of Southeast Asia will definitely spread to North America. If the Nasdaq can still hold on at that time, it would be a miracle."

In my memory, the Thai baht fell in July, but in fact, international speculators have started short selling since May.

On the other hand, the first circuit breaker after the US stock market was established in the original space-time and space, was in October 1997, when Dow Jones plummeted due to the Southeast Asian financial crisis.

The 1997 Nasdaq index was not crazy yet.

This time, the impact of the Southeast Asian financial crisis came. The first thing that was hit should not be the Dow Jones, but the Nasdaq. It may be much earlier, and it will no longer be the October when the Southeast Asian financial crisis was the worst.

No matter what, Simon could only wait patiently.

However, according to the recent growth rate of the Nasdaq, even based on the average monthly increase of 5%, if it lasts for another three months, it is estimated that it will reach more than 7,500 points. At that time, the leader of Igret will definitely exceed one trillion yuan. Even if it is impossible to obtain too much direct benefits from these market values ​​for a while, it will be exciting to think about it.

While chatting casually, after breakfast, Veronica personally took Melbourne to school, Jennifer continued to raise her baby at home, and Simon and his wife took a helicopter from Dumei Point to straight cross the bay to Preya Vista, south of Santa Monica, and SpaceX headquarters.

Today, a public rocket engine test will be conducted here.

After a year of driving away by Simon at any time, the SpaceX team officially launched its first rocket engine, named Merlin-1.

This name was collected by Simon from the SpaceX team publicly. Of course, it did a little bit of a problem and named a guy named Elon Musk.

At first glance, the name "Merlin" seems to be incompatible with the names such as "Falcon" and "Bird of Prey" in SpaceX. In fact, Merlin is the transliteration of "Merlin". This English word means "Grayback Falcon" and they are all raptors.

However, the new Merlin engine is completely different from the Merlin from SpaceX in the original space-time.

In layman's terms, the design plan of SpaceX's Merlin Engine actually comes from a public engine architecture under NASA, which is similar to the ARM public version architecture concept used by many manufacturers in the chip field. Then, with the improvement of the SpaceX team, it eventually became the famous Merlin series.

This time, the new Merlin engine has the technical basis of the famous RD-170 rocket engine from the former Soviet Union.

The first generation Merlin had a thrust of only more than 30 tons, but the RD-170 was a giant with a thrust of more than 700 tons. The two are the differences between early ARM chips and Pentium-class X86 processors. Even the thrust-to-weight ratio that better reflects balanced performance, the value of the first generation Merlin 45 is far lower than the 75 of the RD-170.

It's interesting to say.

In Simon's few professional memories of this, the Merlin series later became more and more like RD-170, and what happened during this period was self-evident.

Simon was also considered "one step in place" this time.

Speaking of which, a lot has actually happened around this private space company in a year since the establishment of the SpaceX team.

The Simons and his wife got off the helicopter at SpaceX headquarters in Prea Vista. The group of people who came to greet them were the best reflecting what happened around SpaceX in the past year.

Among these people, in addition to SpaceX's team, there are also NASA officials, Lockheed Martin's senior executives, representatives of the Ukrainian National Space Administration, etc.

The matter still starts with Simon privately obtaining a large amount of space nuclear energy data from Ukraine.

In terms of aerospace, since SpaceX has decided to adopt RD-170 technology, although it is difficult to have any patents in the aerospace field due to its special nature, it is better to have some legitimate statements after all, Simon simply brought the Ukrainian authorities in.

After the collapse of the Soviet Union, although Ukraine retained a complete set of RD-170 engine technical data, it had lost the ability to produce this engine independently without the assistance of the Russian industrial chain. In addition, the close relationship between the Westeros system and the Ukrainian government and its tangible interests, Kiev readily agreed to the relevant cooperation.

Not only RD-170, under the operation of the Westeros system, Ukraine has almost brought out all the assets that can be transferred.

The conditions for all of these technology transfers are just a mere $25 million in cash and 20% of the shares of a shell company specially used for rocket engine sales established by both parties outside SpaceX, which is equivalent to the Ukrainian side that can only enjoy 20% of the profit share of SpaceX when selling its engines.

In addition, Ukraine can no longer participate in profit sharing for SpaceX production engines and even other businesses that will develop in the future.

Whether it is SpaceX's development goals or the profits, they are actually their own business in the future. You should know that providing a full set of launch services and selling engines only will the profits be absolutely incomparable.

Moreover, while acquiring a large number of former Soviet aerospace technologies, Simon once again accepted a large number of experts in related fields.

The new Merlin 1 can be born within one year, and these former Soviet experts have made great contributions.

However, the biggest improvement of Merlin 1 this time is not based on the RD-170, but the successful use of 3D printing technology, which involves the integration of complex public relations and technology in the past year.

Simon acquired a 3D printing company called 3D-Miracle last year, and then began to conduct technical research on 3D printing of rocket engines a year later.

Because it involves software, materials and other aspects, it is certainly not enough to rely solely on the 3D-Miracle team.

In terms of software, 3D-Miracle cooperated with Autodesk, an industrial design software company that Westeros has a heavy holding.

In terms of materials, this is also one of the biggest difficulties in 3D printing rocket engines, because the printing alloy of the engine material needs to be ground into uniform particles below 500 microns, and must be carried out in an oxygen-free environment. Simon personally intervened and consulted and consulted and consulted several major national laboratories in the United States, and then successfully found the relevant technologies and teams.

Otherwise, although it is only a matter of time, it will definitely not be able to handle it within one year.

In the end, the most direct result of the 3D printing technology for rocket engines was that the manufacturing cycle of the rocket engine, which can be completed in six months by using traditional casting, was shortened to 1 month. Not only that, under 3D printing, many parts of the engine that once required hundreds of parts to be spliced ​​together were formed in one go, and the stability of the Merlin 1 engine was greatly improved.

The most important thing is of course the cost.

According to the estimates of the SpaceX team, as the technology becomes more mature and mass production enters mass production, the cost reduction of 3D printing engines will reach more than 70% compared to traditional engines. If SpaceX can achieve rocket recycling and reuse in the future, the cost will be reduced to a terrible level.

Simon founded SpaceX. Although he had his own ambitions, from the beginning, the company's development goals were very down-to-earth. SpaceX must achieve commercial self-reliance, rather than vainly working hard for the future of mankind.

Just like 3D printing, in the eyes of ordinary people in this era, this technology is a bit similar to the science fiction level, but in fact, it has accumulated many years of technical accumulation in all aspects. It is just that because of the lack of practical application of various research and development, even if the scientific fiction level technological progress is made, it will often be buried in the old paper pile in the end.

This is what Simon regrets the most after decades of human technology. He worked behind closed doors and wasted his own conscience, resulting in the fact that advanced technologies that waste a lot of social resources cannot be applied in practice. Without practical applications, the actual opportunity to go further is lost.

Therefore, both SpaceX and FusionTimes and SolarCity, which are progressing quite smoothly, all of these companies' initial development strategies are mainly "integration".

Whether it is using normal means or stealing, robbing and cheating, first integrate the breakthrough technologies that predecessors have made, and achieve the greatest practical application, and then consider going further.

Of course, Simon also spoke without any pain in his back.

With the development of technology to this point, he must have thought of this, but there are very few who have enough strength and foundation to do this.

With the strong financial support of the Westeros system, Simon happened to encounter the best opportunity for the world to temporarily disappear and the accelerated globalization process to allow the smooth circulation of technology and talents. Without any of these conditions, the difficulty of doing this will increase significantly.

SpaceX Headquarters.

After greeting everyone, Simon and his wife came to a lobby upstairs of the newly completed SpaceX FRP Structure Headquarters. From here, you can see a large open space along the Balona Creek and the seaside. The wasteland that had originally exceeded 300 hectares was bought by Simon last year and used as SpaceX's equipment testing site.

At this time, looking from the hall, a two-story test bench was built on the trimmed flat ground by the Balona Creek five hundred meters away.

The best-performing prototype of the first two Meilin 1 engines has been installed on the test bench.

In fact, today's public test is more of a cutscene, and the SpaceX team has conducted multiple tests in private.

The purpose of today's public test involves a big business.

We still have to start from the beginning.

Since last year, the new generation of the universe god launch vehicle under the auspices of NASA has been looking for the manufacturer of the first-stage engine.

In history, Lockheed Martin eventually signed a long-term supply agreement with Russia, and the relevant engine was RD-170.

This time, since SpaceX is going to be commercialized, Simon certainly will not miss this opportunity. Through lobbying and even putting pressure on the White House, Congress, NASA, Lockheed Martin and other aspects, SpaceX was finally listed as a candidate and also delayed the bidding period from last year to the present.

Moreover, because the "domestic" is the first, and Merlin No. 1 is based on RD-170 and has better parameters, in today's test, as long as there is no accident on the spot, SpaceX will basically win this big order.

It's indeed a big order.

According to the agreement that has been privately planned, NASA and Lockheed Mart will sign a 20-year supply agreement with suppliers, with a total supply of 100 units. Moreover, compared with the 10 million US dollars quotation of RD-170 in Russia, the support of 3D printing technology leads to lower costs. Because the data in the previous tests are better, SpaceX's quotation is still 10 million US dollars.

Total is a large order of $1 billion.

Even if it is divided into 20 years and only has 50 million per year, considering the gross profit margin of SpaceX, it can be considered a great start to this company.
To be continued...