The First Bungee Jump, Space Weapons, Lunar Landers and Airships: Al Weston Has Done It All

**Alan Weston** (0:02)
When the Google founders came and saw this, they initiated what's called the Google Lunar X-Prize, because it gave them the inspiration that going to the moon isn't that hard, and people should really be able to do it, could, should, would be able to do it for tens of millions, not billions.

**Ashlee Vance** (0:36)
Sometimes, there is a man, and in this case, that man is Dr. Alan Weston. You probably haven't heard of him unless you're in the aerospace field, but you should have because he is one of the closest things to a living legend of anyone I know. He helped invent the bungee jump while he was a student at Oxford. He went to the Air Force and made space weapons. He went to NASA and built a low-cost lunar lander and then later in life, he ended up building airships for Sergey Brin, a story that I broke a few years ago and that helped me get to know Dr. Alan Weston. And today, you'll get to know him as well. Here we go, episode two of Core Memory. Dr. Al Weston, thank you for doing this.

**Alan Weston** (1:29)
Great pleasure.

**Ashlee Vance** (1:29)
I could not be more excited about this. I'm going to embarrass you for a second, or at least I think I'm going to.
I get to interview all kinds of interesting people. I've been living in Silicon Valley for a long time and run across all sorts of quite compelling individuals. You were always one of these figures who I would hear about from my other friends. They're like, you can't believe the life this guy has led. So I always wanted to meet you, and we met under unusual circumstances. I'm going to go nearish the present, and then we'll go back into your life. Several years ago, I had heard about this airship being built at NASA Ames, which is this NASA Center near my house.
I was intrigued by this project, and I ended up breaking a story about it, I think, before you guys were prepared for that to come out. I remember I followed you on LinkedIn, I followed you on Facebook, and you made these connections. Then a couple of days after my story came out, they all went away, and I had been cut off. So my sense was you didn't appreciate the story I had written about the secret airship. Is that fair?

**Alan Weston** (2:40)
Well, we were, as they say here, in the stealth mode. And so we kept a low profile, as you've noticed, for a really long time. And it wasn't until a year or two later that we started working with media, including you. And so yes, at the time when I found out, it was, ah!

**Ashlee Vance** (3:07)
Yeah, and I was sad because I wanted to meet you, this legend, and I wanted to learn more about the airship. But then a couple years passed, and we end up at a dinner that a mutual friend of ours had arranged. I don't think he fully knew what he was doing, but he sat the two of us next to each other. And we were being excited, and I was scared, because I wanted to talk to you about the airship. And in hindsight, or at least I think I learned, you were prepared to walk out of this dinner with this evil reporter nearby.

**Alan Weston** (3:41)
Well, that's true. I didn't know you. And so when I sat down next to you, I didn't know who you were. And the person who had organized the dinner didn't tell me who was coming to dinner and that he had put me next to you.
And so when I found out, I was, as you remember, I was horrified. However, we had a great dinner and we agreed not to talk about the airship project. So we talked about other things, including my experience at NASA working on space projects. And that was really the thing that you wanted to talk to me about anyway. And that was fun. And at the end of the night, you gave me a ride home. And so that was fun. And we became good friends. But at the beginning, you're right, I was like, oh no. So yes, that's the way it happened. That's the way I remember it.

**Ashlee Vance** (4:34)
I was very happy. I was nervous while we were sitting there. And then yes, we ended up on this ride home. OK, so this is just a set up, how we met. You've lived this extraordinary life. Al's shaking his head modestly. There's all kinds of places we could begin, or we could go biographically. But there's a particular spot I want to start. And maybe we'll work our way back a bit later. But as you know, I've been fascinated by this thing that you were part of called the Dangerous Sports Club, which was at Oxford, started in roughly...