Hollywood Hunter

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Cape Dume Estate, early morning dining room.

She ran to her aunt's side, hugged Veronica's shoulder and kissed her on the cheek before turning to Simon with a big smile on her face and gave him a kiss on the head.

The little ones at the table were bewildered, and Jennifer, who was pregnant and looking after her two children, couldn't help but roll her eyes, while Veronica hung her head slightly and pretended not to see as she helped Melbourne divide the meal.

Janet picked up the cutlery and shooed away the waitress who was helping before asking Simon, "How's it going on the East Coast?"

Knowing what the woman was asking, Simon shook his head regretfully, "I just got word that Scaife has shut down the Pittsburgh Tribune."

"What a retreat, but unfortunately, the Mellon family gave in so neatly this time, we won't be able to execute some of our subsequent plans."

"Yeah, there's a Chinese proverb called ......."

"The rabbit is dead."

"Heh, you are now at least eighth grade Chinese," Simon quipped, then said: "Anyway, the Mellon family suddenly retreated so completely, we are not good to do anything else, otherwise it will make the Federation's other old money family more scrupulous vigilance, in the end can not offend everyone at once. "

Simon's original thought was to use this Mellon Financial Group incident as an opportunity to strike down the Mellon family's interests in other industries and to achieve the goal of weakening the Mellon family to the greatest extent possible.

The Mellon family's sudden and complete abandonment of Mellon Financial over the weekend took Simon by surprise.

After all, the Mellon family is not without roots in Washington and Wall Street, and if they are pushed too hard for a while, it will inevitably make the other old money families die and even share the same enemy.

The Mellons can only stop.

The Mellons have just launched an investigation into the Mellons' loan fraud, and will probably settle soon.

Without knowing what exactly happened behind the scenes, Simon could only lament the decisiveness of the century-old money family.

Last week, Mellon Financial drove Chevron and Alcoa down for three days in a row, but they couldn't pull down the Nasdaq, which I initially thought was a good opportunity."

Across the table, Jennifer said, "Mellon Financial is on the NYSE, not the NASDAQ."

Simon shrugged, "Pretty much, it's the federal stock market after all."

Janet took a sip of her milk? She probably thought the milk was not good today, poured some to Seattle next to her, and evened out half of it to her man? As she smiled, she asked, "Are you in a hurry?"

"Of course it's urgent? Time is money, isn't it?" Simon also smiled and replied, "As high as the market capitalization of Ygritte is, it's just numbers now, nothing more. And the high market value of the entire Nasdaq is already having a negative impact on Westeros' position in the new technology sector? Currently, both our own expansion and external acquisitions? Costs have increased dramatically, causing us to put many of our plans on hold."

Janet: "If you're in a hurry, why don't we just poke around ourselves? All it would take is a large stock sale? And cash in on the funds."

"Keep up the pressure on the Mellons? It's only the old money class that's irritated. If we cut our tech stock holdings now? It's the whole world that will be offended."

Janet waved her fork lightly, "What a pain in the ass."

"We're better off doing nothing anyway."

Across the table, Jennifer listened to the conversation? asked, "When will Soros launch?"

"About May?" Simon said, nodding his head and saying, "This is another opportunity for Soros to short Southeast Asia, and the impact will definitely carry over to North America? And if the Nasdaq can hold up by then? That would be a miracle."

Memories? The Thai baht lost ground in July? But in fact, international speculators have been selling short since May.

On the other hand, the first meltdown of the U.S. stock market in the original time frame after the establishment of the meltdown mechanism? was in October of 1997.

Once upon a time in 1997 the NASDAQ wasn't crazy.

This time, the impact of the financial crisis in Southeast Asia, the first impact should no longer be the Dow Jones, but the Nasdaq, and perhaps much earlier, rather than once the worst of the financial crisis in Southeast Asia in October.

In any case, Simon will have to wait patiently.

However, according to the recent growth rate of the Nasdaq, even according to the average monthly rate of 5%, if it holds out for another three months, it is estimated to be more than 7,500 points, by which time as the leader of the Ygritte will certainly break a trillion, even if a time can not get too much direct benefit from these market values, think about it also feel exciting.

After a casual chat and breakfast, Veronica personally sent Melbourne to school, Jennifer continued to nurse the baby at home, and Simon and his wife took a helicopter from Point Dume in a straight line across the bay to SpaceX headquarters in Playa Vista, south of Santa Monica.

A public test of the rocket engine will take place here today.

After a year of intense research and development, driven by Simon at all times, the SpaceX team has officially launched its first rocket engine, named Merlin-1.

The name was an open call by Simon from the SpaceX team, with a little cheating, of course, in the form of a name provided by some guy named Elon Musk.

At first glance, the name 'Merlin' may sound like it doesn't fit with what SpaceX used to call 'Falcon', 'Raptor' and the like, but in fact, Merlin is a transliteration of 'Merlin', an English word that means 'gray-backed falcon', both raptors.

The new Merlin engine, however, is completely different from the original SpaceX Merlin.

In layman's terms, the design of the former SpaceX Merlin engine was actually a public engine architecture from NASA, similar in concept to the ARM public architecture used by many manufacturers in the chip industry, and then improved by the SpaceX team to become the famous Merlin series.

This time, the new Merlin engine is based on the famous RD-170 rocket engine from the Soviet Union.

While the original Merlin had a thrust of just over 30 tons, the RD-170 was a giant with over 700 tons of thrust, the difference between the early ARM chips and the Pentium-class X86 processors.

Interesting to say the least.

Simon's professional memory is not very good, but what happened in the later Merlin series, which became more and more like the RD-170, is self-evident.

Simon was also 'one step ahead' this time.

By the way, a lot has happened in the year since the SpaceX team was formed at the beginning of last year, and a lot has happened around the private space company.

The group of people who greeted Mr. and Mrs. Simon as they got off the helicopter at SpaceX headquarters in Playa Vista can best be described as a reflection of what has happened around SpaceX over the past year.

In addition to the SpaceX team, there were NASA officials, Lockheed Martin executives, representatives of the National Space Agency of Ukraine, and more.

It all started when Simon privately obtained a large amount of space nuclear data from Ukraine.

On the aerospace side, since SpaceX decided to use RD-170 technology, although the aerospace field is very difficult to patent because of its special characteristics, it is better to have some justifiable names, so Simon simply dragged the Ukrainian authorities into it.

After the collapse of the Soviet Union, although the Ukrainian side retained a full set of RD-170 engine technical data, it had lost the ability to produce the engine on its own without the assistance of the Russian industrial chain, and with the close relationship between the Westeros system and the Ukrainian government, as well as tangible benefits, the Kiev side readily agreed to the cooperation.

Not only the RD-170, but also almost all of the Ukrainian assets that could be transferred under the operation of Westeros were made available.

The terms of the technology transfer were only $25 million in cash and a 20 percent stake in a shell company outside SpaceX for the sale of rocket engines, which equates to a 20 percent share of the profits from the sale of engines.

In addition, the Ukrainians will no longer be able to participate in the profit sharing for the production of engines for SpaceX's own use or for any other business that SpaceX may develop in the future.

Both SpaceX's development goals and its profits are in fact the future of its own business, and there is no comparison between providing full launch services and selling engines.

Moreover, Simon was able to justifiably acquire a large amount of Soviet space technology, and once again, he received a large number of experts in the field.

The new Merlin 1 was born within a year of its launch, and these Soviet experts were instrumental in making it possible.

This time, however, the biggest advancement is not the RD-170, but the smooth introduction of 3D printing, which has involved another year of complex public relations and technology integration.

Simon acquired a 3D printing company called 3D-Miracle last year, and the following year began a technology initiative specifically focused on 3D printing for rocket engines.

Because of the software and materials involved, relying solely on the 3D-Miracle team was certainly not enough.

On the software side, 3D-Miracle has partnered with Autodesk, an industrial design software company in which Westeros has a strong stake.

On the materials side, this is one of the biggest hurdles for 3D printing rocket engines, because the printing alloy for the engine material needs to be ground to uniform particles below 500 microns, and also in an oxygen-free environment. Simon personally intervened, calling on the accumulation of several major U.S. national laboratories, which successfully found the relevant technology and team.

Otherwise, although it was only a matter of time, it could not be done within a year.

Eventually, the most direct result of conquering the 3D printing technology for the rocket engine is that the manufacturing cycle of the rocket engine, which could only be completed in six months by the traditional casting method, has been shortened to one month. Moreover, thanks to 3D printing, many parts of the engine, which once required hundreds of parts to be assembled, were created in a single run, making the Merlin 1 engine much more stable.

The key, of course, is the cost.

According to the SpaceX team's estimates, as the technology matures and enters mass production, the cost of a 3D-printed engine will drop by more than 70% compared to a traditional engine. If SpaceX is able to recycle and reuse rockets in the future, the cost will drop to a frighteningly low level.

Although Simon has his own ambitions for the creation of SpaceX, the company's development goals have been very down-to-earth from the beginning, and SpaceX must be commercially self-sustaining rather than vainly working for the future of humanity.

Just like 3D printing, to the average person of this era, this technology is a bit like science fiction, but in reality, there has been an accumulation of technology on all fronts for many years, but due to the lack of practical application of various kinds of buried research and development, even the science fiction level of technological progress is often buried in the old paper pile.

This is what Simon regrets most about the decades of human technological explosion. The closed-door, self-contained approach leads to the waste of social resources on research and development of advanced technology can not be applied in practice. In the absence of practical application, the opportunity to go further is actually lost.

Therefore, the initial development strategy of both SpaceX, which is progressing quite smoothly, and SpaceX, which is progressing quite smoothly, is based on 'integration'.

Whether by normal means or by stealth, they integrate the breakthrough technologies that have been achieved by their predecessors and maximize their practical applications before considering taking them further.

Of course, Simon is also standing on his feet.

At this point in technological development, he is certainly far from alone in thinking of this, but there are very few who have the strength to do this.

Simon, with the financial support of the Westeros system, has also come across a time when world confrontation has temporarily disappeared and globalization has accelerated, making it easier for technology and talent to circulate, and without any of these conditions, it will be much more difficult to do this.

SpaceX Headquarters.

After greeting everyone one by one, Simon and his wife went to a lobby on the upper floors of the newly completed SpaceX glass and steel headquarters, from which they could see a large area of open space along the Ballona Creek all the way to the sea.

From the lobby, a two-story test stand was erected on a leveled area 500 meters away along Ballona Creek.

The better performing prototype of the first two Merlin 1 engines was already installed on the test stand.

In fact, today's public test is more of a formality than anything else, as the SpaceX team has conducted several tests in private.

The purpose of today's public test, on the other hand, involves big business.

Let's start at the beginning.

Since last year, NASA has been looking for a manufacturer for the first-stage engine for the next-generation Cosmos launch vehicle under the auspices of Loma.

Historically, Loma ended up signing a long-term supply agreement with Russia for the RD-170 engine.

This time, since he wanted to commercialize SpaceX, Simon of course would not miss this opportunity, and through lobbying and even pressure from the White House, Congress, NASA, and Loma, he finally included SpaceX as a candidate, and delayed the bidding deadline from last year to the present.

Moreover, because of the righteousness of 'domestic', plus the fact that Merlin 1 is based on the RD-170 and has better parameters, SpaceX will basically win this big deal in today's test, as long as there are no accidents on the test site.

It is indeed a big deal.

According to the proposed agreement, NASA and Loma will sign a 20-year supply agreement with their suppliers to deliver up to 100 units. And, compared to the Russian RD-170's $10 million offer, the addition of 3D printing technology leads to a lower cost premise, because the preliminary test data is better, SpaceX's offer, is still $10 million.

That's a total of $1 billion.

Even if it is divided into 20 years, with only $50 million per year, considering the gross margin on SpaceX's side, it is still a great opening for the company.

And, after all, this is just a business for SpaceX.

Neither NASA nor Loma has restricted SpaceX's use of the Merlin series for its own purposes, so in the future, autonomous launches will be the main focus.

In the lobby of the SpaceX office building, everyone was seated. SpaceX President Gwen Shotwell confirmed that everyone was present, asked Simon for instructions, and then turned to the surrounding staff sitting behind computers to start the test.

A few moments later, as the flames and smoke came from the test stand in the distance, everyone felt the tremors from the power of Merlin 1.

A series of parameter reports from the NASA supervisors were heard over the loudspeaker at the same time.

"Sea level thrust: 81,773KN."

"Sea level impulse: 353s."

"Combustion chamber pressure, wow, 27.3Mpa, OK?"

"Thrust to weight ratio ...... thrust to weight ratio ...... 96, too strong."

"......"

In the lobby, listening to the voices in their ears and the gradual commotion of the various staff members who came to watch the test, even the NASA official sitting next to Simon could not calm down and frequently turned his head to measure Simon. Although he had already gotten some data in advance, the NASA official, who was also a professional, was more or less questioning what he heard on the spot.

Simon paid no attention to this.

He had gone through a lot of data in advance, and probably could have anticipated the shock that these data would bring to NASA, Loma, and other representatives, but only Janet, who looked like she was listening to heaven.

As I was about to explain something to Janet, the Ukrainian woman sitting on the other side of her, who had a full figure and fair skin, chatted attentively with Janet in standard English, probably explaining the meaning of the relevant data, but the woman's soft voice was obviously a little raised, as if to attract other people's attention.

The test lasted for more than half an hour, and both NASA and Loma's team were a little skeptical the first time around, so they went to the test bench to check things out, and then conducted a second test.

Naturally, there were no problems.

There was sufficient communication in private, two tests in a row, and NASA had no objections, followed by the witness of all parties, as the two sides of the deal, SpaceX and Loma executives signed an agreement on the spot, as well as the champagne opening ceremony.

A lively lobby.

Simon and his guests socialized briefly, then found Gwen Shotwell and other SpaceX cadres, and began to pour cold water on the whip.

"This is just the beginning, Gwen, and everyone else, the next most important thing you need to do is build your own SpaceX launch vehicle. And, as I've long set out to do, SpaceX must work toward a reusable rocket. Oh, and did anyone else tell me it wasn't possible this time? ...... Good, it's a beautiful day, and it's not good that someone is getting fired. ...... "

After pouring cold water, of course, the sweet dates were not forgotten.

After announcing a $15 million incentive package on the spot, it was about time for Simon to turn around and look for Janet, who was walking with some Slavic-looking woman on her arm.

"Simon, this is Natasha. She speaks excellent English, and she's not at all Ukrainian.

Simon smiled as he listened to Janet's introduction and gave her a 'you don't look like a dork' look before casually shaking hands with the woman in front of him: "Hi Natasha, uh, I like the typical Slavic name.

The Slavic woman, who is about 175 cm tall and about 30 years old, wearing a black suit, is quite provocative, both in terms of her full figure and her fair face with a few feminine features.

"Oh, Mr. Westeros, it's a pleasure to meet you today, and you can call me Nat."

"Yes, Nat."

Janet continued to be silly, "Simon, look at how pale Nat's skin is, I don't know how to take care of it, I'll have to ask later."

"Actually it's natural, but it's your complexion that looks better Jenny, I'm a bit overly white."

"No, Simon likes white." Janet came so, looking at the man in the woman's slightly brightened eyes, "Are you leaving?"

"Yeah, there's a meeting coming up, I won't be home for lunch, do you want a ride to downtown first?"

"Yes," Janet said, not forgetting to look around, "Nat, do you have a problem separating yourself from the others?"

The woman was busy shaking her head, looking honored: "Of course not."

Simon didn't care that Janet was suddenly in the mood for something, and after saying goodbye to everyone, he left SpaceX headquarters with the two women.

He flew to Beverly Hills to drop off the two women before heading to Malibu Studios.

American Pie, which had already started shooting at the end of last year, was finished in mid-February and had recently completed its rough cut. Because it's a project that Simon is personally following up on, with a pre-scheduled work schedule, Simon is meeting with the filmmakers today to view the dailies and offer follow-up production ideas.