Boredom Leads to Great Things 44
by creating an illusion, an engineer can build an aircraft
making it really possible to fly. “If you go back a few
hundred years, what we take for granted today would seem
like magic – being able to talk to people over long distances,
to transmit images, flying, accessing vast amounts of data
like an oracle,” Elon said. “These are all things that would
have been considered magic a few hundred years ago.”^117
With inspiration from the quote by Arthur C. Clark,
Elon performed a series of magical experiments. Attempt-
ing to hypnotize his siblings was the first experiment. “He
wasn’t very good at it. I’d be like, ‘No, Elon, I’m not going
to eat raw bacon.’ But he kept on trying,” Tosca said.^278
Elon also showed some magical entrepreneurial skills by
experimenting with business ideas. He, his siblings, and
their cousins sold Easter eggs in the neighborhood, and
they sold homemade chocolate to their classmates.^51
Other magical experiments consisted of homemade,
potentially lethal, explosives and rockets. “It is remarkable
how many things you can explode,” Elon said. “I’m lucky
I have all my fingers.” He had to build everything from
scratch because it was impossible to find hobby rockets in
South Africa. To find rocket fuel, he visited a chemist to
buy the ingredients needed.^56 “I had always been interested
in space, from the time I was a kid looking at the stars
in South Africa,” Elon said. “I was inspired by the Apollo
astronauts and wanted to one day set foot on the Moon or
even Mars.”51,60,62
The Apollo program was NASA’s third human space-
flight program with the goal of landing a man on the Moon