Everything was always easy for me. I was always the smartest in class, including the teacher. Always scored the highest they have ever seen on intelligence tests. At the the opening for the most advanced university courses they said that everyone there would have the same prior experience, but would struggle now. They were wrong. It was still very easy, and I was smarter than the professors.
Did I mention that I'm also very competitive?
So, you would assume I'm now a crazy rich software entrepreneur, or a top scientist at a research lab. I'm not. I barely made any money last year. I didn't release a single research paper. Didn't apply for a single job. Never finished my university studies. I never had a real plan.
What changed?
Installed a treadmill at work in December last year (2024). Had never worked out with a pulse meter before. Some HIIT program easily resulted in a pulse over 160. According to a graph on the treadmill that's way too high for a old guy like me (46 at the time). Concerning. But looking into this, in conjunction with my low rest pulse, it seems like it might be a sign of very good heart and cardiovascular health. That being the leading cause for death in most western countries, maybe I still have some years left to do something. Why not live to 120? So lets say 70 years to go. That's a lot of time! Especially considering my accumulated skills and experiences.
I've learned how to solve a lot of science and engineering issues cost and time efficiently. Got good at human resources. Learned how politics work. Understood how money models work. And figured out how to scale very difficult engine engineering problems.
Plan basics
So, I made a plan. Actually two plans. First I need to stay in reasonable shape and be happy so that I can live as long as possible to have as much time as possible for the main plan.
So the real plan: What is the most important thing I could do to forward humanity and life in general? Lets really move the needle here, as far as it will possibly go. None of this 8 month Mars trip nonsense. While being something fun to do and experience so that I have enough motivation to make it happen. How about seeing Jupiter with my own mk1 eyeballs. Ambitious and interesting. Making the tech required to do that would be unfathomably beneficial for humanity. Pushing us forward by a thousand years. While making life and human progress much more sustainable. We would have private space stations across the solar system within 40 years. If I want to see that happen myself, I would need to make the tech within about 10-20 years from now.
Could making the engine tech needed to enable this market in 10-20 years be realistic?
The tech needed
We (humans) basically already have everything we need to do Jupiter trips on human lifetime time frames. Everything except the rocket engines. We would need something like a order of magnitude improvement on current rocket engine performance. There have already been rocket engine concepts with approximately a 2-3x improvement over even the best current rocket engines. A further 3-5x on top of that... definitely within the realms of possibility especially considering just how bad the current state-of-the-art in rocket engines is. Lets say at least a 50% shot that I could find the physics needed, and make the engineering work for a 10x jump.
Absolutely worth a serous effort and dedicating a plan to.
It will most definitely require serious resources though. Some new science/tech might be able to achieve the performance needed "easily". But even pushing existing basic rocket engine concepts as far as they will possibly go might be enough. Smartest solution would be to push down several paths at once to save time. For absolute science and engineering limit pushing projects like this, something like a 10 billion € per year budget for 10 years would be the right initial ballpark.
I'm probably going to absolutely waste at least 70%, if not 95% or even more of the resources. At least initially before figuring out the right path to take and how to proceed as efficiently as possible with it. No investor or partner would ever ok that. They would chicken out for sure.
So I need to be in a position to have those resources, and be able to 100% decide over how to use them.
Ok. How do I get there as quickly as possible?
No way I will be able to find anyone to give (invest) that kind of money. Even if I did find someone interested, they would definitely want a say in the details. That would not allow for nearly ambitious enough project management to get this done in my lifetime.
Ok, so how do I do it?
So, bootstrapping it is then. But is it even possible to bootstrap to being able to spend 10 billion per year in a fast enough time frame?
Since I need total control of expenditure, that means it needs to come from income. So need a business that makes a minimum of 10 billion in profit per year. So we need a market that is big enough with a good growth, poor competition, and is ripe for disruption, or make a new market and grow that quickly enough to get to 20 billion in turnover (with 50% profit margin). It would be extremely difficult to grow a brand new market that quickly. People are just too conservative to adapt new things quickly. Although the quantum computing bubble, and current AI investment craze might suggest otherwise.
Maybe we don't need a new market. How about engines. Total global combustion engine market is already more than big enough. With a very solid annual growth. The market is even big enough to be able to look at the best subsections of that market to focus on. Which greatly increases the possibility of success.
So let me elevator pitch the aviation engine market to myself. 60 billion per year market size, 6+% annual growth, very poor current tech with very conservative and slow current market leaders. In addition to some nuclear research fields, this is probably the closest possible tech field to extreme performance rocket engines in existence. You already know engines and have designed and manufactured the highest power/mass circuit racing engine ever.
There is a chance that this is a case of everything looking like a nail when you have a hammer. But it does make sense, so at least a good starting point.
Lets go then!
Immediate goal: figure out how to scale the current racing engine business to get profits to allow for effectively pushing into the aviation engine market. Then scale that as fast as humanly possible to reach at least 10 billion profits per year. So minimum of 20 billion per year turnover. Make tools, and hire people that will benefit the long term goal. Say no to everything else. Maximum focus and effort.
Lets make a beach club on a sustainable station orbiting Jupiter a reality. In this life time. Once I make the tech for a human lifetime doable trip to Jupiter happen, there will be unlimited investment and possibilities to make humans live throughout the solar system.
I might need to revisit the plan a few times to see if I could do something more meaningful for humanity. But now I at least have a base plan.
What might my overall chances be? Bootstrap a business to 10 billion in profits in 10 years * science and engineer the shit out of rocket engines in the next 10 years * complete a successful Jupiter trip. Surely it can't be more than 0.01%, even for me? But it has to be non-zero. So you're telling me there's a chance?
If I succeed or not, trying my very best to make this happen is a life worth living.