We didn’t get to the moon by dreaming about going to Montana.
I started my career at NASA. That place teaches you something about the relationship between a destination and what it takes to get there.
Montana is far. You can still get there in a car.
The moon is the only kind of destination that forces you to invent the vehicle. Pick a target big enough and the tools do not exist yet. You have to build them.
That is the real function of a bold vision. It is not just motivation. It is a design constraint.
I have been told “no” more times than I can count. Told I was doing too much. Told I was crazy.
Most of what I have attempted, nobody has ever heard of. The starts that went nowhere. The ideas that died in a notebook. You only see the ones that made it, and the few that failed loudly enough to notice. That is a very generous edit of the record.
Here is the number I keep coming back to:
At its peak, the Apollo program employed 400,000 Americans across more than 20,000 firms and universities. (Source: NASA)
Twelve people walked on the moon.
Four hundred thousand built the thing that carried them, and almost none of them are named anywhere.
I think about that constantly, because I am not a 400,000-person operation. I am one person who is good at a narrow set of things and genuinely bad at a long list of others. Everything I have built has depended on finding people willing to carry the ball while I tinker.
That is not a confession. That is the design.
Most companies set Montana goals and then wonder why nothing gets invented, and why nobody acts like an owner.
Those are the same problem.
Pick a destination that requires everyone. Then build a structure where everyone actually shares in reaching it.
We have picked our destination. And the design. Neither is ready to share just yet because there are still things we have to get right first.
Over the coming months, I will introduce you to more of the people building the rocket. Then I will tell you where it is going.
If you would rather build for a place you cannot drive to, I would like to meet you.
Montana needs a map. The moon needs a rocket.