February 20, 2015

To: Elon Musk

From: Writer/Author, Mark Wayne McGinnis

Subject: Elon Musk to (potentially) Captain U.S. space vessel – The Minian

Dear Mr. Musk:

To first introduce myself, I am primarily a fiction Sci-Fi writer. Over the last 15 months I’ve written, and had published, eight e-books on Amazon (Kindle) that are also available as audiobooks and paperbacks. To my own astonishment, all have become Amazon best-sellers.

The Scrapyard Ship series (7 books to date) involves a Navy SEAL commander, who, by chance, discovers on his grandfather’s old scrapyard property, in San Bernardino, a spacecraft (The Lilly) buried in an abandoned aquifer, far underground. Brought back to its original condition, Jason and his assembled crew have many space adventures on this ship, and others.

All things come to an end, eventually, and when this series’ ride is over I’d like to start a parallel story, using only a few of the same characters, and center the book around an even more advanced spaceship, named the Minian. An admirer of your career, I am thinking about my new protagonist Captain, being an Elon Musk-type — or better yet, the actual Elon Musk (perhaps one who is a bit wilder and crazier do to life’s events), at a period three years from now. I’d only use your name/persona, if you we’re onboard with this (figuratively and literally).

As a writer, I’m always doing some kind of research. This morning I was listening to an interview (podcast), which spoke about NASA’s next 5- to-10-year plan. I found myself becoming so irritated I had to listen in segments. Although they are building rockets available for use in the early 2020s, they don’t expect to have the budget necessary to actually send them on specific missions … to the moon? … to Mars?

Your SpaceX program today is where hope realistically lies for mankind to again revitalize outer space exploration. You have proven that one person’s forward vision and tenacity can make a monumental difference. So I’m visualizing this ‘Elon Musk/alter-ego-type/character’ for my proposed new series, who’d bring excitement, and adventure, and fun, to man’s, not so distant, space-travel ventures. Of course you could be as involved with the character development as much as you’d like … Maybe this can, in its small way, help bring back a Kennedy era space exploration excitement, again. Please let me know your thoughts!

Kind regards!

Mark

Mark Wayne McGinnis
markwaynemcginnis@gmail.com
www.markwaynemcginnis.com
@MarkWMcGinnis