A zeal to achieve and a proper vision holds the potential to do what a common man calls miracle. Here is tale of a well established entrepreneur - Elon Musk. He has set an example and inspiration for a common man born in a normal family. Hope the readers of this article goes through it and like excerpts of his life.
On June 28, 1971 in Pretoria, South Africa The upcoming inspirational entrepreneur who was named as Elon Musk was born to the couple - Maye Musk (a model and dietitian from Canada) and Errol Musk ( a South African electro-mechanical engineer).
At the Age of 12, he taught himself computer programming, designed a video game called Blastar and sold it to a magazine called PC and Technology.
After finishing studies at Pretoria Boys High School (South Africa), at the age of 17, he moved on to Canada where he was accepted into Queen's University, for undergraduate study. After two years he transferred to the University of Pennsylvania, where in May 1997 he received Bachelor of Degree in Physics from its College of Arts and Sciences, and a Bachelor of Science Degree in economics from its Wharton school of Business by extending one year of studies for the second degree.
In 1995, at the age of 24, Musk moved to California to begin a Ph.D. in applied physics and material science at Stanford University only to leave it after two days to pursue his entrepreneurial aspirations in the areas of the internet, renewable energy and outer space.
At the start of his career as entrepreneur Musk co-founded companies viz. zip2 in 1995, X.com and PayPal in 1999. He later made trips to Russia twice for ICMBs but ended finally at a Russian offer to provide him a rocket at US $8 million. This made Musk think twice as he felt it expensive. While on his return journey, Musk realized that he could start a company that could build the affordable rockets he needed as he found that only 3% of the rocket sale price was sufficient to buy all the raw material for building the same.
To be Remembered Startups where Elon Musk either founded or has great involvement are SpaceX (for space exploration programs), Tesla Inc., Hyperloop (high-speed transportation system), Solarcity (provider of solar power systems), Neuralink (neuro-technology startup company to integrate human brain with artificial intelligence) and The Boring Company ( for tunnel boring to ease vehicular traffic). In this article we limit our focus to SpaceX.
By theoretically applying vertical integration and the modular approach from software engineering, he could cut launch price by a factor of ten and still enjoy more than 50% margin. Ultimately, Musk ended up founding Space Exploration Technologies or in short - SpaceX in May 2002 with a long term goal of creating a "true spacefaring civilization." SpaceX develops and manufactures space launch vehicles with a focus on advancing the state of rocket technology.
Company's First space craft is the Dragon. In seven years of it's journey, SpaceX designed the family of Falcon Launch vehicles and the Dragon multipurpose spacecraft. In September 2008, SpaceX's Falcon 1 rocket became the first privately funded liquid fueled vehicle to put a satellite into Earth orbit. About 4 years later in 2012, the Spacex Dragon vehicle berthed with the ISS, creating history as the first commercial company to launch and berth a vehicle into the International Space Station.
In 2015, by practically working out the Falcon launch vehicle, SpaceX even became successful in orbital rocket re-usability lowering the costs of access to the space. SpaceX is the largest private producer of rocket engines in the world and also the holder of record for highest thrust to weight ratio for a rocket engine.
Musk was influenced by Isaac Asimov's Foundation series and views space exploration as an important step in preserving and expanding the consciousness of human life.
Musk's goal is to reduce the cost of human spaceflight by a factor of 10. In an interview he said he hopes to send humans to Mars' surface within 10-20 years. He stated that as Mars atmosphere lacks oxygen, all transportation would have to be electric. Musk said that multi-planetary life may serve as a hedge against threats to the survival of the human species and hence would like to establish a Mars colony by 2040.
References:
Content: Elon Musk - Wikipedia
Image: By Steve Jurvetson - https://www.flickr.com/photos/jurvetson/18659265152/, CC BY 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=40974345
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