What SpaceX Launches Teach Me

As my daugher and I sat in our community pool with a neighbor’s family, we saw another plane fly over. “That’s Elon’s jet!” he exclaimed. “For real?!” I replied. I couldn’t believe it.

Fast forward 2 years to our home rumbling from the 33 raptor engines on the Starship, 20 miles away. A Boeing 747’s four engines produce about 230,000 pounds of thrust combined. Just 1 raptor engine is like three times that.

I didn’t realize when I moved to the Rio Grande Valley years ago, I’d be writing about takeaways from some company called SpaceX. But here we are.

Here are 5 things SpaceX’s launches are teaching me.

1. blow things up to learn.

Elon Musk and other employees have been open about this idea. Does it cost a fortune, of course. But Musk is playing the slow game. His aim is to get to Mars to make life multiplanetary. So, in Musk’s paradigm, it’s worth the cost (also…he’s rich).

Blowing things up helps us learn. We must have the freedom of play to see if what we make functions. I was recently helping my daughter make a dominos set up. This principle came to mind while she was getting frustrated with how her efforts kept failing. I reminded her of the bigger picture.

She learned to ask, “what did this teach me so I can improve next time?”

2. A mission moves you and others to stretch.

Musk is driven by missions. Whether it be population decline, interplanetary living, or reusable rockets. These missions lead him to set the bar high for employee output. Just follow his flight tracker, and you see what drives him.

Missions motivate. They help us endure pain. They create community.

3. compounding: play the slow game.

Thirteen years ago, I drove out to Boca Chica beach with my dad, then a year later with my brother. The 20 mile stretch seemed like the ends of the earth. No one around. The road ends at the sand (literally).

Fast forward a few years to a visit my wife and I made. There appeared to be one new-ish looking building with a fence and security guard. “No vehicles are allowed here,” he said. I didn’t realize it then. But this would become the site of Starbase.

Do not judge missional-thinking behavior by outward appearances alone! Before too long, you see the compounding effect.

4. Create moments with family.

Tim Urban wrote this piece on taking his toddler to view a recent SpaceX launch. I didn’t realize until seeing this that I am living in plain site of a historic moment in time. Our family has been able to watch nearly all the SpaceX launches from our driveway.

This continues to teach me an important lesson on remaining present and creating moments with loved ones.

5. Sometimes, explosions can be beautiful.

Few spectacles have made my jaw drop. This specific launch was one of them. Seeing this explosion live felt like watching visual effects in a movie but in real life.

Sometimes, what seems like our greatest hardships, God uses to weave something beautiful for us.

My Top Culture-Making AI Prompts

2024 marked the first year I used Chat GPT or some equivalent. Artificial Intelligence is and will permeate everything in the world going forward. I took Kevin Kelly’s advise and have been thinking about it more as a personal assistant. Here are some of my most useful prompts from AI.

Ideas for Family stuff

• Asking it to come up with a list of family night games to teach my kids _______.

• Asking it to come up with a list of experiences or moments about ___________ in style of Chip and Dan Heath (who wrote The Power of Moments).

• Asking for movie suggestions. What are 10 movies where the main character struggles with _______.

• Asking for 5-10 conversation question for kids (based on my kids ages) based on whatever movie or TV show we just watched. The questions ought to be aimed at engaging with the worldview of what we watched. My goal is to extract truth, values, and where the movie did and didn’t hit the mark.

• Asking for a list of ways [any parenting author I’ve liked] would engage with a certain issue I’m facing.

For learning Stuff

• Learning about any topic. But asking it to teach me like a specific person or at a 5-year old reading level.

• Asking about any topic that’s hard to grasp, but explain it to me in the style of Mr. Rogers.

• Asking about a philosophical concept, but explaining it to me like I’m 5.

• Copy and pasting a Hebrew of Greek word from the Bible and asking it to translate it.

Learning about myself

• Asking, “From all of our interactions what is one thing that you can tell me about myself that I may not know about myself.” (h/t).

• Asking it, “based on everything I’ve asked you, come up with an image.”

Managing Life

• Asking to convert a goal or aspiration I have into a SMART goal.

William Blake On Love

Love seeketh not itself to please,

Nor for itself hath any care,

But for another gives its ease,

And builds a heaven in hell’s despair.

Love seeketh only self to please,

To bind another to its delight,

Joys in another’s loss of ease,

And builds a hell in heaven’s despite.

William Blake, from The Clod & The Pebble

Color Theory from Aladdin

I always love a good color theory overview.

Poem: A Christmas Gift for Artists

This year, I give you artists out there something surprising…

A Shovel

Yes, a shovel.

I summon you, in 2025, to dig those God-given gifts, skills, and talents out of the ground. Put them to use.

No matter how far you have to dig,

how much broken cement obstructs the way,

how many bugs must be sliced,

how much mud and clay coats them…

Do not allow them to remain in the ground.

Do not plateau.

Do not compare yourself to Noah, digging for “seemingly no reason.”

Do not continue to walk over the sacred ground they lie beneath.

The Master may grant us yet another year to excavate, wipe clean, and make use.

Though he is clean, he looks for dirted hands.

He has custom-ready recipients your tools align perfectly with.

This is what he holds us accountable to.

Doing Good

Galatians 6:9-10, “doing good”

The Restoration of Old Man Marley

“This is the place to be if you’re feeling bad about yourself.”

Old Man Marley

Home Alone is, of course, a classic. The nostaglia hits the instance the opening scene begins.

I always loved when Kevin sets up the traps. Child-made justice rummaged onto wicked robbers hit the 10 year old heart.

Childhood movies become part of our scenic background of development. And such memories can be most challenging to think critically about.

Last time I watched Home Alone, something dawned on me: Old Man Marley’s character arc.

He is initially portrayed as a spooky old man. Lore, myths, legends abound from the McAllister children. This fear drives Kevin through much of the movie’s background. The audience is left wondering, “Is Kevin more afraid of Marv and Harry OR Old Man Marley?”

Kevin, at least, engages Marv and Harry. He confidently prepares for their return multiple times. But with each glimpse of the Old Man, Kevin hides, runs away,

We finally discover the real Old Man Marley through the lens of Kevin’s transformation.

It’s no accident that the church building is where Kevin seeks help, and in walks a smiling Old Man, wishing him a Merry Christmas. We soon learn that the Old Man has a story—he carries worries and fears. He has an estranged relationship with his adult son. He is not welcome in his family’s lives nor their Christmas celebrations. Yet, he’s open to the perspective of a young child (Kevin).

Home Alone is about transformations. Two in particular. As I child, I figured it was Kevin’s. As an adult, I see it more as Old Man Marley’s. In the final scene, we find both he and Kevin joyfully restored to their families. The turmoil of Kevin’s few days without his family was a metaphor for what the Old Man felt for years being estranged from his son.

There is hope and restoration for all this and every Christmas.

“Old Man Marley” (2023), Matt Taylor

The Nations will Flow To The Lord

Reversed Waterfall (1998) by Olafur Eliasson @studioolafureliasson

“Now it will come about that In the last days The mountain of the house of the LORD Will be established as the chief of the mountains, And will be raised above the hills; And all the nations will stream to it.”

Isaiah 2:2