countering the spacex origin story, looking at early employees
the spacex origin myth is elon and some rocketry people he cold called went to russia to buy rockets, which they couldnt do so elon said 'ok we will build our own rocket'.
michael griffin was along for the ride, though some accounts of this story dont mention him and some accounts say he was a business partner. so who is mike griffin? lot to say about his work in 80s/90s, but notably around this same time ('02) he became pres of in-q-tel
in the 80s he was deputy of technology for the Stategic Defense Initiative, then worked for orbital sciences corp. he later became head of nasa in '05, and chief technology officer for the department of defense in '17. again, broad strokes just to demonstrate general history
its not surprising that spacex's early talent came from places like orbital sciences and trw, but my speculation is that mike griffin is the true organizer of the spacex project and that it was *his* connections that formed the backbone of the company
another important early employee was Tom Mueller, formerly of TRW. the story is he wasnt fulfilled there and was doing hobby rocket stuff when musk picked him up. the wikipedia
gwynne shotwell is another important early (and long-term) spacex employee, formerly of The Aerospace Corporation which itself is TRW spinoff
again none of this is surprising given the nature of spacex's product, however considering that spacex may not be what it appears to be, its worth reiterating the connections between SDI and TRW and again the presence of mike griffin at spacex's inception
interestingly, this origin myth article tries to say that *jim cantrell* was responsible for the early networking. then he's out of the picture. seems to me much more likely that it was griffin's network that spacex pulled from.
that's funny because the same article paints him as a pariah in the space industry
cantrell apparently left spacex early, and left the industry altogether until around 2013.
i guess ill wrap this up saying that i believe spacex is a front, organized by mike griffin, for some secret project involving many TRW/SDI veterans. so far i am not sure what the exact nature of the project is, though my next step will likely be to examine what spacex *isnt*
*the wikipedia article for TRW states the importance of their veterans for spacex
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