Some four centuries ago, the sultan of the Ottoman Empire wearied of his bothersome neighbors in Eastern Europe. So Mehmed the Hunter, an Islamic holy warrior who reigned for four decades, wrote to the piratical Cossacks living in what is modern Ukraine and demanded their surrender. The cretins must bow to the cultured.
Today, a large painting that dominates one wall of Tom Markusic's office depicts the Cossack response to Mehmed. On the canvas, a dozen rough-looking, hard-drinking men have gathered around a scribe, pointing, smoking, and laughing uproariously. The scribe is writing a ribald, disparaging response. It is a copy of the famed Reply of the Zaporozhian Cossacks to Sultan Mehmed IV of the Ottoman Empire painting, which hangs in the State Russian Museum in St. Petersburg.
Markusic glances at the painting and explains, "Basically, they're saying, 'Don't worry about coming to get us—we're coming to get you.'"
The Lone Star State is a long way from Ukraine, where the painting is much-beloved. And though Markusic himself is not a hard-drinking Cossack, he draws inspiration from the story of the rebellious Zaporozhian Cossacks. One of their descendants salvaged his dreams.
Markusic's rocket company, Firefly, was left for dead in 2016 when its funding dried up. In those last desperate days, as Firefly burned through a million dollars a week, Markusic spent most of his time chasing investors. Eventually, Firefly and its 159 employees crashed hard. Few in the aerospace industry were surprised. Then, as now, dozens of start-up rocket companies are seeking to build newer and cheaper boosters to launch satellites into space. Some failed before Firefly. Some have failed since. Certainly, with a glut of would-be launch providers, most will fail within the coming years. That Firefly joined the ash heap was hardly surprising.
To read more, click here.