Elon Musk A leader by nature
Introduction
From an early age Elon Musk it was convinced that to guarantee survival, human beings must become a species that inhabits more than one planet. The safest thing is that this idea has as its origin its early readings of the Foundation of the Author of Fiction Sciences, Isaac Asimov. In these books it is clear that space exploration is an important step to preserve and expand human life as long as possible. However, Musk finds out with a travel series to Russia, made between 2001 and 2002, that the task of reaching space is nothing economical.
At the beginning of 2001, Musk conceives the idea of Oasis de Marte, a project that sought to attract the attention of space exploration through the possibility of experimentally installing greenhouses on the surface of Mars, to guarantee food to hypothetical colonizers of the red planet. With this idea in mind, Musk travels to the capital of Russia, Moscow, in October 2001. Go next to Jim Cantrell, a aerospace mechanic, and Adeo Ressi, his best friend of the University, with the aim of buying intercontinental ballistic missiles. The group meets with rod companies like Npo Lavochkin and Kosmotras.
Developing
They treat them as rookies so the negotiations did not reach anything, so they returned to the United States empty -handed. However, Musk tries again and travels to Russia in February 2002, now with Mike Griffin, who worked for the CIA and NASA, specifically in the propulsion jets laboratory and in the creation of satellites and spacecraft. The group meets again with some members of the Kosmotras company, who offer a space rocket for eight million dollars. Musk seems an extremely expensive price, so he does not accept the treatment.
Back to the United States Musk reflects how space rocket prices are artificially inflated, and realizes that he can found a company that aims to create more economical rockets. Thus, in May 2002, Spacex (Space Exploration Technologies) a company that has a view to making possible human colonization of space by creating efficient rockets, reusable and therefore cheaper. Musk invested 100 million dollars of his own fortune to found Spacex. The company is located in Hawthorne, California and Musk is the CEO and the Head of Technological Development.
For 2016, Musk has 54% of the company’s shares, which is equivalent to 78% of the votes on the Board of Directors. The first space rockets that Musk designed were the Falcon series, named in honor of the millenary hawk of the films of the Galaxias War. The first of all was Falcon 1, a two -step propulsion rocket with liquid fuel, designed to bring small satellites to the space orbit. In comparison to its direct competitors, such as Lockheed Martin and Boeing, this first Spacex rocket was much cheaper, thanks to the efficient design of its engine, which is called, Merlin.
Spacex’s primal idea was that these rockets were reusable, unlike the space rockets of competitors that were always of one use, since they would create that reusing them was risky and unreasonable. Unfortunately, this innovative objective did not achieve it with the Falcon 1 model, but it was only a matter of time for them to achieve it. In March 2006, Spacex made the first launch of a Falcon 1, which began correctly but ended prematurely for a fuel leak, which originated an explosion. The pressure felt in the company, for that same year he had already earned millions of dollars with several launch requests.
Many of them paid by the United States government, in addition, in August of that year they had won a competition of NASA funds to build and demonstrate a new rocket model that could replace NASA’s rockets, which served fortransport load and astronauts to the International Space Station. Unfortunately, the launch failures of Falcon 1 continued to occur in March 2007 and August 2008, but in September 2008 they managed to put into orbit the first space rocket of a primarily private company. This great achievement allowed Space X to gain greater NASA financing.
In December 2008 they were accredited with 1.6 billion dollars for 12 flights to the International Space Station with Falcon 9 rocket. The Falcon 9 space rocket bears that name by using nine engines and is designed to launch the load space, such as space transfers, and then fall into the sea and be able to be recovered and reused some of its part or in its entirety. In the case, of the Dragon Space Killing is a compartment with pressurized sections.
Other discouraged that is capable of loading up to 6.000 kilograms of load in your original model. Dragon also has other possible uses that have not been tested in real life at the moment, but being tested, one of them is its ability to transport up to seven astronauts, and the other (known as dragonlab) is to orbit around theLand to carry out scientific experiments. In June 2010 it was the first launch of a Falcon 9 from Cabo Cañaveral, Florida. In December of that same year Spacex was the first commercial company to send a space transforder to space, in this case a dragon model, and recover it successfully on Earth.
In May 2012, Dragon returned to make history when he managed to attach successfully at the International Space Station, being the first transfer of a commercial company in doing so. With this he managed to supply the astronauts who were living at that time at the station. For these successes, NASA decided in August 2012 to grant a contract to develop a transfers capable of transporting astronauts to space. Between 2013 and 2015, Falcon 9 proved to be an excellent rocket to transport materials and satellites to space. In December 2013 he managed to transport a geosincronized satellite with the earth’s orbit.
And in February 2015 he managed to transport Deep Space Climate Observatory. At the time of designing the Falcon 9 space rocket, it was done in such a way that its first part, which leaves behind when entering the space, is reusable. In 2014, launch tests began with reusable pieces, for December 2015, the first part of a Falcon 9 was successfully recovered near the take -off station in Cabo Cañaveral.
In addition, with this they were able to patent a remote controlled boat landing system, this happened for the first time in April 2016 and the recovered pieces were reused in another launch in March 2017. That same year a Dragon capsule was also reused. By the end of 2017 the first parts of Falcon 9 rockets have been recovered, 16 consecutive missions, this includes all fourteen made in 2017. This means that since the first Falcon 9 was launched, 20 first parts of rockets of 42 rockets launched have been recovered.
In this way Musk’s dream of building cheaper aerospace technology by making it reusable has been successfully fulfilled. In February 2018, the Falcon Heavy was first tested in a launch, a rocket that joins three first parts of Falcon 9, so it can transport loads of up to 53.000 kilograms, almost double that similar rockets of competition, such as Delta IV Heavy of Boeing. In this first launch it was not possible to recover central engine nucleus, but two lateral propellers if they returned successfully after Coñaveral.
This first heavy falcon in flying did not carry any satellite, instead he carried a Tesla Roadster with a mannequin inside, so that he orbite around the sun from Done took photographs of his journey. Falcon Heavy was conceived to be used in the future as a propeller of astronaut transfers to the deep space. At the end of March 2018, Spacex received permits from the United States government to launch satellites in an orbit close to the earth’s surface with the aim of providing internet services. This service would allow high speed and much cheaper connectivity, so the Internet will extend to rural areas.
In addition to pressing other companies to reduce costs and expand to more territories, thus eliminating a monopoly from a few communication companies. The name of this satellite network is Starlink. In May 2019, they launched 60 satellites and were followed by other 60 batches launches, until they reached a 300 network, in this way Starlink is the largest satellite service for the Internet, turning Spacex into the largest operator companyof satellites. When sending these satellites to the terrestrial orbit, Spacex demonstrates their extensive experience in aerospace technology and the quality of engineers and programmers who work within the company.
Starlink satellites are not transported ordinary, since they are thrown in the middle of the road and the rest of the tour does the satellite itself, something that is a complex, but efficient maneuver when it comes to saving fuel, time and money. In addition, most satellite launches have been made with Falcon 9 reused space rockets, some of them reused up to three times, 62 days apart between flight and flight. A more demonstration that Spacex is achieving its original objectives. Betting strong in this project, since for 2020 the deployment of Starlink satellites is the primary objective of Spacex.
On the other hand, Starlink has not been beneficial for everyone, since astronomers in the world have complained with Spacex and their directive about the placement of this large number of satellites that are so brilliant that they make it difficult to study distant objects in thespace. This luminous irruption appears in the starry sky especially after dusk and before dawn. Spacex responded to worried astronomers telling them that successive satellite batches will have a coating that will decrease reflectivity and the transmission effectiveness will not decrease.
In 2019, Musk announced what the successors of Falcon 9, Falcon Heavy and Dragon would be like. The next generation of rockets would be the super heavy (super heavy), which were originally called Big Falcon Rocket, which has the load capacity of up to 100.000 kilograms or up to 100 people like passengers. The space transforder that replaces Dragon is the starship, designed for several purposes, from the rapid transport between large cities on planet Earth, even for the construction of space bases on the moon and on Mars. Spacex does not plan to make starships commercial releases until after 2021.
Once all the relevant tests are done, which are developed in Texas and Florida. Musk has planned to use a starship to make a flight around the moon with the Japanese businessman Maezawa Yusaku with other artists in 2023, this trip is called #dearmoon Project. In addition, there are already several telecommunication companies that have hired Spacex to transport their satellites with the new generation of transfers after 2021. In December 2016, Musk announced the existence of a new company: The Boring Company (the boring company). Which aim to build tunnels.
Musk’s inspiration to found it were the difficulties generated by traffic in Los Angeles, so he set out to eliminate two -dimensionality from the transport network making a network of tunnels to communicate different areas of the city. This company began as a Spacex subsidiary, but in 2018 it became an independent company. For that same year Elon Musk owned 90% of the companies and Spacex’s shares 8%. In February 2017, The Boring Company began to make its first tunnel on adjacent lands of the Spacex building. The tunnel had proportions of: 9 meters wide and 15 meters long, with a depth under land of 4.6 meters.
This was the first test and doing so in that field did not require any state permissology. Elon Musk was so excited with his project, that one afternoon for Friday he told his Spacex employees to make a tunnel on the company’s land would only take two weeks to make the first tunnel. He was challenging himself, to see how much they could do in that short time. That same day, there were no cars in the parking lot, and instead there was a great hole, where the first tunnel of The Boring Company would begin. At a TED conference, in April 2018, Musk described his work at The Boring Company as a hobby that only took him between 2 or 3% of his time.
Musk’s first project with The Boring Company was a plan to make an underground tutoring between Lax to Westwood, going through Culver City and Santa Monica. The trip would last five minutes, much less than the 45 -minute trip that is normally made in a day with traffic between Lax to Westwood. The route would be made by means of a table driven with electricity, which would take cars to its destination at an average speed of 200 kilometers per hour. In November 2017, the Los Angeles governorate gave the company a permission to make a tunnel between Hawthorne and Westwood, following the interest 405.
conclusion
The future plans of The Boring Company are numerous and continue to grow in number. From projects in large part of Los Angeles, to tunnels that communicate the city of Chicago and its airport. In addition to tunnels that communicate the center of New York and Washington. Without neglecting China’s possible interest in applying this way of making alternate road routes. In March 2018, they announced that they also focus on encouraging tunnel projects for pedestrians and cyclists.
In 2020, NASA announced that Spacex will build the rockets and safingers that will carry a load to the moleway moon (lunar road), the planned space station that orbital around the moon to provide life support to the operations that will be done on the lunar surface. This planned that Spacex developed a dragon XL transf the greater capacity to be able to do this task, which will not be reusable at least in its first versions, but it will provide the load capacity needed by NASA astronauts. All this to make NASA’s objectives possible to terrchase astronauts in 2024.
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