Where do you find Elon Musk on a Friday? On Twitter, of course. And today’s brief missives are a special treat, and include mysterious references.
Apparently, Elon has decided to name the drone ships that will serve as landing pads for SpaceX rockets. The almost-repaired Atlantic craft is heretofore to be known as the “Just Read the Instructions”, while a second boat, bound for the Pacific will be christened the “Of Course I Still Love You.”
Cool, right? But what does it all even mean?
Well, the names demonstrate something we’ve known for a while. Namely, Elon is a big sci-fi geek. Also, he has read the The Player of Games by Iain M. Banks, which, if you don’t know, is part of highly recommended Culture series. The Just Read the Instructions and Of Course I Still Love You are two drone ships that are completely unlike ships as we might imagine them and, interestingly, possess some amount of artificial intelligence.
You can buy and/or read a generous preview of The Player of Games here. Scroll down for Elon’s tweets.
Repairs almost done on the spaceport drone ship and have given it the name “Just Read the Instructions”
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) January 23, 2015
West Coast droneship under construction will be named “Of Course I Still Love You”
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) January 23, 2015
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