A collection of inspiring people who tackled difficult problems and their approaches.
Naomi Altman is a former engineer at Rocket Lab:
“a twentysomething engineer from Australia…had never built a flight termination system before joining Rocket Lab, but she’d spent the past four years reading books about them, designing them, and testing them. It could be argued that she had built the most crucial technology on the whole rocket.” (When the Heavens went on Sale, p. 225).
Though she clearly favors doing things instead of learning:
“When you’re building and breaking things it means that you’re learning. As opposed to say, doing a whole lot of modelling and analysis. If everything’s staying on the computer, then you’re not learning as quickly as you could otherwise.”
Peter Beck is the founder of Rocket Lab.
“Looking to perfect his rocket engine technology, Beck read the classics of the field, like Rocket Propulsion Elements by George P. Sutton and Oscar Biblarz. He also mined the internet for scientific papers and took advantage of NASA’s rather generous archives of technical documentation and manuals. The more he read and the more he experimented with the propellants, the more comfortable Beck became with the idea of making something real.” (When the Heavens went on Sale, p.162)
“Like a man posessed, Beck began building his first rocket. The project required that he once again experiment with propellants. This time around it was not so much about refining the chemicals as finding the right recipe of explosives to combine. Knowing almost nothing about chemistry, he read books on the subject and sought advice from anyone who could help, including scientists working down the hallway.” (When the Heavens went on Sale, p.181)
“Ever the engineer, he broke down what he needed to do next into a series of steps: Start a company. Raise some money. Build something small first. Gain confidence. Then build something bigger. Raise more money. Just having a plan erased Beck’s anguish and pumped him to the brim with enthusiuasm.” (When the Heavens went on Sale, p.176)
Shaun O’Donnel is a former electrical engineer at Rocket Lab.
“like Beck, he learned a lot about what the rocket would require from books and by searching on NASA’s website” (When the Heavens went on Sale, p.183)
Bryson Gentile is a former SpaceX engineer.
“Rockets are not supercomplicated. If it looks complicated, it’s because you haven’t broken it down into enough chunks yet. The key to building a rocket is breaking it into tiny little chunks.” (When the Heavens went on Sale, p. 313)
Greg Yang, a mathematician working at x.Ai has read like 1000 textbooks on every mathematical subject ever. Basically he gained all his knowledge from textbooks. This made we wonder: is reading textbooks more valuable (in terms of the $ return you get from reading) than fiction/non-fiction books?
Elon Musk lays out some of his engineering principles in this video. He advocates the following ordered steps: