Elon Musk Research Paper PDF

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Touheda Khanom Professor Michael Neiman English 1101 December 11th, 2019 The Inventor People have only thought of living in different countries around the Earth and traveling to long distances with airplanes until today. Elon Musk is a person with unique ideas and determined to fulfill his aspirations. Musk wants people to live in space and make living multi-planetary. According to SpaceX, “Elon  Musk leads Space Exploration Technologies (SpaceX), where he oversees the development and manufacturing of advanced rockets and spacecraft for missions to and beyond Earth orbit”(n.p.). Musk  is the founder of both an aerospace company, Space Exploration Technologies Corporation and an automotive company Tesla Motors. From his childhood Musk always had this desire for invention and interest in computers. When Musk moved to Los Angeles, he started thinking about something exclusively distinct. He founded SpaceX which was unique because space travel was on the control of the government only. In  2017 Musk announced that SpaceX was intending to launch the first cargo missions to Mars with the vehicle in 2022, as part of his overarching goal of colonizing the red planet. Currently, Elon Musk’s main mission is to save the people of this Earth making a way for them to live on a different planet like Mars. He  thinks Earth will no longer be a safe planet to stay, therefore, to make survival possible on Mars is important. Musk revolutionized space travel

creating rockets like Falcon 1, 9, and Dragon spacecraft which could make Mars colonization possible. Elon Musk is not an American but he moved to the United States to fulfill his dream. Because he knew America was the best place for him to flourish. As mentioned in the book the quest for a fantastic future by Ashlee Vance, “Musk’s early inclination toward computers and technology had fostered an intense interest in Silicon Valley, and his trips overseas had reinforced the idea that America was the place to get things done”(44). Elon Musk was born on June 28, 1971, in Pretoria, South Africa. He is the youngest and smartest technology entrepreneur, investor, and engineer. His mother, Maye Musk, a Canadian model and his father, Errol Musk, a wealthy South African engineer. His close childhood friends were his brother Kimbal and sister Tosca, with whom he spent most of his time. Elon Musk was a quiet child with lots of thinking in mind. He was a genius from his childhood and had this want to make something great in life. He learned to program by himself at age 12 and created a video game called Blastar. Not only his father was an engineer, but his granddad was a genius of his time. His grandfather Joshua Norman Haldeman, made his own plane and used to travel all throughout North America along with his wife, Wyn Haldeman without any maps. Vance stated, “In 1952, Joshua and Wyn made a 22,000-mile round-trip journey in their plane, flying up through Africa to Scotland and Norway”(28). Musk  always wanted to move to America to fulfill his dream. At  age 17, Musk left his home for Canada to attend Queen’s University. Later he left Canada in 1992 to study at the University of Pennsylvania. Finally, he went to Stanford University to do his master's but left after a few days and never was done with masters to launch his company Zip2

Corporation. Musk got married to Justine Wilson in 2000 who went to Queen’s University with Musk. At one point, after Musk no longer had control over PayPal in 2001, he and his wife decided to move to Los Angeles. Los Angeles is the place that made Musk interested in the space industry, a man who only knows the best about the technology industry. Living in Los Angeles was a benefit for him to be around the world’s top aeronautics thinkers. Ultimately, Musk met with the aeronautics community were with an eccentric collection of space enthusiastic, members of a nonprofit group called the Mars Society. Robert Zubrin, the head of the Mars Society presented Musk with the research center and the experiments they had been running called the Translife Mission. The same day Musk joined the Mars Society board of directors and donated $100,000 to fund a research station. Musk had a different goal about the Mars mission therefore, he resigned from his position as a director of the Mars Society and made his own organization called the Life to Mars Foundation. Musk's plan was to send rockets to Mars which is very expensive. Musk wanted to get rockets from Russia because of their budget, however, the plan did not work out because Russia didn’t show any interest. Later, Musk decided to make their own rockets. As Musk had known nothing about the aerospace industry he studied to know. Musk decided to make rockets within their budget. Ashlee Vance mentioned, in his book, “Musk would inspire people to think about exploring space again by making it cheaper to explore space”(108). Fortunately, Musk meets with Tom Mueller who knows how to make rockets with less money. Finally, Musk founded SpaceX in an old warehouse at 1310 East Grand Avenue in

El Segundo, a suburb of Los Angeles. The company started its work to make rockets faster and cheaper than anyone else.

SpaceX launched its first Falcon 1 on November 25th, 2005 which was not successful, moreover, they did four attempts which was in vain. Along with NASA’s support and its COTS program, SpaceX’s fifth attempt at Falcon 1 was successful. As mentioned on the SpaceX website, “The Falcon 1 became the first privately-developed liquid fuel rocket to orbit the Earth”(n.p.). Additionally, the most significant was the placement of Malaysia’s RazakSAT toward Earth orbit. RazakSAT of Malaysia made the fifth launch of Falcon 1 successful. SpaceX and its team persistency lead to their triumph. They didn’t lose hope but were determined and committed to their goal. However, SpaceX no longer uses or sells Falcon 1. Erik Seedhouse stated in his book SpaceX Making Commercial Space Light a Reality, “From the perspective of launch success, Falcon 1 had one of the all-time worst orbital launch vehicle records in history, it failed three times in five attempts and managed to send only one satellite into orbit and even that satellite failed to function properly”. Falcon 1 was the cost of a lot of money.

To reduce the cost so that all people can afford to live on Mars in the future SpaceX plans to reuse the rocket. According to SpaceX Elon Musk Stated, “If  one can figure out how to effectively reuse rockets just like airplanes, the cost of access to space will be reduced by as much as a factor of a hundred. A fully reusable vehicle has never been done before. That really is the fundamental breakthrough needed to revolutionize access to space.” As SpaceX was a private company, Musk and his team were trying to make rockets launch possible within their budget and also reused rockets to make faster launches. After  Falcon 1, Falcon 9 was made

which is a two-stage rocket. Falcon 9 is a reusable rocket. As mentioned in the SpaceX website, Falcon 9 is designed for the reliable and safe transport of satellites and the Dragon spacecraft into orbit. SpaceX became the first commercial company to visit the International Space Station in 2012 when it shipped Dragon into orbit for rendezvous. Falcon 9 brought drastic progress for SpaceX and revolutionized space travel. As SpaceX website mentioned, “Falcon 9, along with the Dragon spacecraft, was designed from the outset to deliver humans into space”(n.p.). Dragon is the first spacecraft to reach the space station. It plays a vital role in carrying cargo to space. In the future, Dragon will take humans to Mars.

Elon Musk is a person who always thinks about making changes and looks at ways for a better future. According to SpaceX Musk stated, “You want to wake up in the morning and think the future is going to be great - and that's what being a spacefaring civilization is all about. It's about believing in the future and thinking that the future will be better than in the past. And I can't think of anything more exciting than going out there and being among the stars.” SpaceX has drastically changed as a private company that currently launches rockets regularly. In 2008, SpaceX made its first rocket Falcon 1 which was a failure three times that disappointed them, however, the fifth flight makes history which becomes the first developed rocket to reach Earth orbit. NASA makes a very good relationship with SpaceX and awards $1.6 billion for the Commercial Resupply Services contract.

Jeff Bezos is the CEO of Amazon and the founder of a space company called Blue Origin in 2000. Both Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos have space companies. Bezos and Msk are business rivals. Both of them are sending rockets, however, their goals are different. Musk wants to

colonize Mars, on the other hand, Bezos wants to colonize the moon, not any planets. According to SingularityHub Peter Diamandis mentioned, Bezos views the moon as an incredible gift with an abundance of frozen water, the moon can provide fuel (oxygen and hydrogen) and critical elements for life (breathable oxygen and drinkable water) and Musk wants to take humans off fossil fuels and make humans multi-planetary. Both think living in space is going to save humans but some don’t agree. According to vox Kesley Piper mentioned, Cosmologist Martin Rees at Cambridge University was fine with private companies exploring space, but was emphatically opposed to the idea that colonization can save us: “ I think that’s a dangerous delusion because Mars will be a more hostile environment than the top of Everest or the South Pole, and dealing with climate change here on Earth is far more important than terraforming Mars”(n.p.). Some think instead of wasting money on sending lives on space it will be better to use the money to improve Earth. Bezos and Musk think Earth in the future will not be a safe place for people therefore, they are trying to colonize Mars and Moon but why they don’t find ways to make Earth a better place.

Many years ago, airplane transportation was a plan that seemed impossible to humans which are made possible. Similarly, SpaceX’s starship will become the most developed vehicle in the future. Starship will not only carry people to Mars but also to the moon and the Earth. to Earth transportation the fastest which will save a lot of time and make traveling easier. Starship is a reusable transportation system produced to carry both passengers or cargo to Earth orbit, not only Earth but also the Moon, Mars and beyond. It will travel to countries much faster than commercial airplanes. For example, countries that require eleven hours of distance will travel

within only 34 minutes by starship. Raptor is a full-flow, staged combustion rocket engine powered by cryogenic methane and liquid oxygen, rather than the RP-1 kerosene and LOX used in SpaceX’s prior Merlin engine family. The Super Heavy booster is powered by 37 Raptors, while Starship is powered by 6. Starship’s payload volume is greater than 1,000m3. New inventory rockets will make transportation and life much easier.

The future goals of SpaceX are to send its first cargo mission to Mars within the next three years. Their aim for the greatest mission will be to approve water resources, classify hazards, and put in place initial power, mining, and life support infrastructure. The second mission, with both cargo and crew, will be in 2024, with fundamental purposes of developing a propellant depot and planning for future crew flights. Moreover, the ships from these first missions will further assist them to give an idea of survival possible on Mars.

Works Cited

Biography. “Elon Musk Biography”. Biography. April 4, 2018. Accessed December 3, 2019. Piper, Kelsey. “The Case Against Colonizing Space to Save Humanity”. Vox. October 22, 2018. Accessed December 10, 2019. Diamandis, Peter. “The Next Space Race: Bezos vs. Musk”. SingularityHub. May 24, 2019. Accessed December 10, 2019. Seedhouse, Erik. “SpaceX Making Commercial Spaceflight A Reality”. Springer 4. Dordrecht Heidelberg. London New York. 2013. Vance, Ashlee. “Elon Musk Tesla, SpaceX, and the Quest for a Fantastic Future”. HarperCollins. 195 Broadway, New York, NY 1007. 2015.

https://www.spacex.com/starship 3. https://www.spacex.com/news0

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