“There have to be reasons that you get up in the morning and you want to live. Why do you want to live? What’s the point? What inspires you? What do you love about the future? If the future does not include being out there among the stars and being a multi-planet species, I find that incredibly depressing.” – Elon Musk on 2017 TED.
I think that more people should know about Elon Musk’s acceleration of mankind’s progress.
Elon Musk is an inventor and entrepreneur.
You might’ve heard about Tesla or SpaceX. Tesla, being an electric vehicle-manufacturing company, and SpaceX, being an aerospace manufacturer and space transportation company, were both founded (or co-founded in Tesla’s case) by Elon. He therefore works in both of them.
You can’t argue about progress of these two.
SpaceX was founded in 2002 to revolutionize space technology, with the ultimate goal of enabling people to live on other planets. It has gained worldwide attention for a series of historic milestones.
It is the only private company capable of returning a spacecraft from low Earth orbit, which it first accomplished in 2010. In 2012 Dragon spacecraft became the first commercial spacecraft to deliver cargo to and from the International Space Station, etc. Sounds amazing yet? Then how about this: SpaceX is currently working on a next generation of fully reusable launch vehicles that will be the most powerful ever built, capable of carrying humans to Mars and other destinations in the solar system. And if it was just one company..
Tesla.
It’s mission is to accelerate the worlds transition to sustainable energy, so we wouldn’t run out of resources our planet possesses and become extinct. Founded in 2003 by a group of engineers, it now manufactures more than 200 thousand electric vehicles a year. The Model 3 became the best-selling all-electric vehicle world-wide. Tesla also produces electric panels, solar roofs and batteries.
Even though now they prosper, it wasn’t always as good.
In 2008, Elon got hit by a financial crisis. It had been a very difficult time for him, to the point were he had a breakdown. The heroes of his childhood, news channels, even voting candidates – they were all speaking ill of him, not believing electric vehicles or privately owned space company will succeed.
About three months earlier, on Sept. 28, 2008, SpaceX’s Falcon 1 rocket lifted off for the fourth time, successfully delivering a dummy payload to the orbit.
“We were running on fumes at that point,” Musk says. “We had virtually no money… a fourth failure would have been absolutely game over. Done.”
Despite successful launch, to save Tesla Elon still needed millions from investors.
On Dec. 23, 2008, NASA awarded SpaceX a $1.6 billion contract to haul at least 20 metric tons of cargo to the international space station over 12 planned flights. Later, Tesla’s investors decided to pour in more money.
It saved two companies.
This story inspires to move on no matter the difficulties you encounter.
Another company of his that amuses me is Neuralink. It’s a neurotechnology company, to which the name hints. Basically, what it does is a research and development of implantable brain-machine interfaces. The company was in shadows until July, when they organised a live-streamed presentation at the California Academy of Sciences, regarding what they’ve been working on for 3 years (it was founded 2016). Proposed future tech involves a module (chip) place outside the head that wirelessly receives information from thin flexible electrodes embedded in brain. This can be technology that gives humanity a push forward like inventions such as electricity or radio did. The potential is enormous. We might be capable of something from curing altzgamer disease (and more like it, that involve brain or neural damage) to talking with a person from another part of the world not even using mouthes or devices, anything besides our very own brain! And this can be an understatement.
So, a man that laid a beginning to all these activities and even directly involved in some.. how can you not admire him? Personally I agree with quote above, there has to be something that drives forward in life. For Elon this “something” is helping humanity in becoming a space-faring civilisation, such an honorable goal.
Maybe, in decades, our descendants will read about him in history books, about the most important person of the century, who set big goals and achieved them.
And if they ask me to help with their history homework, I’ll gladly tell them a story of a man who drove humanity forward.
“There have to be reasons that you get up in the morning and you want to live. Why do you want to live? What’s the point? What inspires you? What do you love about the future? If the future does not include being out there among the stars and being a multi-planet species, I find that incredibly depressing.” – Elon Musk on 2017 TED.
I think that more people should know about Elon Musk’s acceleration of mankind’s progress.
Elon Musk is an inventor and entrepreneur. You might’ve heard about Tesla or SpaceX. Tesla, being an electric vehicle-manufacturing company, and SpaceX, being an aerospace manufacturer and space transportation company, were both founded (or co-founded in Tesla’s case) by Elon. He therefore works in both of them.
You can’t argue about progress of these two.
SpaceX was founded in 2002 to revolutionize space technology, with the ultimate goal of enabling people to live on other planets. It has gained worldwide attention for a series of historic milestones. It is the only private company capable of returning a spacecraft from low Earth orbit, which it first accomplished in 2010. In 2012 Dragon spacecraft became the first commercial spacecraft to deliver cargo to and from the International Space Station, etc. Sounds amazing yet? Then how about this: SpaceX is currently working on a next generation of fully reusable launch vehicles that will be the most powerful ever built, capable of carrying humans to Mars and other destinations in the solar system. And if it was just one company..
Tesla.
It’s mission is to accelerate the worlds transition to sustainable energy, so we wouldn’t run out of resources our planet possesses and become extinct. Founded in 2003 by a group of engineers, it now manufactures more than 200 thousand electric vehicles a year. The Model 3 became the best-selling all-electric vehicle world-wide. Tesla also produces electric panels, solar roofs and batteries.
Even though now they prosper, it wasn’t always as good.
In 2008, Elon got hit by a financial crisis. It had been a very difficult time for him, to the point were he had a breakdown. The heroes of his childhood, news channels, even voting candidates – they were all speaking ill of him, not believing electric vehicles or privately owned space company will succeed.
About three months earlier, on Sept. 28, 2008, SpaceX’s Falcon 1 rocket lifted off for the fourth time, successfully delivering a dummy payload to the orbit.
“We were running on fumes at that point,” Musk says. “We had virtually no money… a fourth failure would have been absolutely game over. Done.”
Despite successful launch, to save Tesla Elon still needed millions from investors.
On Dec. 23, 2008, NASA awarded SpaceX a $1.6 billion contract to haul at least 20 metric tons of cargo to the international space station over 12 planned flights. Later, Tesla’s investors decided to pour in more money.
It saved two companies.
This story inspires to move on no matter the difficulties you encounter.
Another company of his that amuses me is Neuralink. It’s a neurotechnology company, to which the name hints. Basically, what it does is a research and development of implantable brain-machine interfaces. The company was in shadows until July, when they organised a live-streamed presentation at the California Academy of Sciences, regarding what they’ve been working on for 3 years (it was founded 2016). Proposed future tech involves a module (chip) place outside the head that wirelessly receives information from thin flexible electrodes embedded in brain. This can be technology that gives humanity a push forward like inventions such as electricity or radio did. The potential is enormous. We might be capable of something from curing altzgamer disease (and more like it, that involve brain or neural damage) to talking with a person from another part of the world not even using mouthes or devices, anything besides our very own brain! And this can be an understatement.
So, a man that laid a beginning to all these activities and even directly involved in some.. how can you not admire him? Personally I agree with quote above, there has to be something that drives forward in life. For Elon this “something” is helping humanity in becoming a space-faring civilisation, such an honorable goal.
Maybe, in decades, our descendants will read about him in history books, about the most important person of the century, who set big goals and achieved them.
And if they ask me to help with their history homework, I’ll gladly tell them a story of a man who drove humanity forward.