Elon Musk is a world famous business magnate, engineer, investor and inventor. He’s famous for his ambitious projects, and revolutionary technology. He’s a 45 year-old billionaire, who is heavily involved in green energy, and space technology. The goals he’s set for himself include reducing global warming through sustainable energy production and consumption, and reducing the risk of the extinction of the human race colonising other planets. He’s worth an estimated 13.9 billion dollars, making him the 94th wealthiest man alive, and is considered the 21st most powerful person in the world by Forbes. Elon Musk currently only pays himself $1 dollar a year.
Fixing South Australia’s Energy Crisis In 100 Days, Or it’s Free
Elon Musk recently pledged to fix South Australia’s energy problems in a 100 days or it’s free. South Australia has been hit by a series of storms, causing sever blackouts, which has resulted in creating an energy crisis. Energy firms are struggling to meet the demand. Firms are struggling to meet the demand because of damage to their infrastructure, and ended up raising their prices. Because of his offer citizens of other countries have asked if he could do the same for them and he answered yes. Musk recently spoke with the Australian PM in person about this.
Private Spaceflight
Elon Musk is currently CEO of Space X, the company he founded in 2002. Space X made history when they became the first commercial company to send cargo to the ISS (International Space Station). Eventually Dragon will even be used to carry people into space, and visit the ISS. This will be commercial so anyone who can pay enough money will be able to go. While sitting inside the spacecraft passengers will be able to see through four windows, and look at the moon, earth, and the rest of space. Crew Dragon is expected to make it’s first orbital flight in late 2017. It’s expected to carry it’s first human crew in May 2018. NASA has signed a contract to pay for up to six crewed flights to the ISS.
Hyperloop
The Hyperloop is a high speed mag-lev train, it will be able travel at 720mph, around 400mph faster than the current world’s fastest train. Hop aboard the Hyperloop and you can travel from Los Angeles to San Francisco in only 35 minutes. Elon Musk is running the project and expects it to be finished by 2021. He also believes the train will be highly energy efficient, quiet and autonomous. Musk described it as “a cross between a Concorde, a railgun and an air hockey table”. This hypothetical high-speed mode of transportation would have the following characteristics: immunity to weather, collision free, twice the speed of a plane, low power consumption, and energy storage for 24-hour operations.
Tesla
Elon Musk is CEO of Tesla a company revolutionising electric cars. Elon Musk considers electric cars an important endeavour in order to lower carbon emissions. His goal was to create a car that went against the current notion of what an electric car was like. Electric cars were normally ugly, slow and inefficient. Tesla cars are attractive, fast, and work well. There have been four cars created by Tesla, with the fourth one being the Model 3 which is coming out soon. The first four were created to help fund the Model 3, everything has been leading up to this moment.
The Model 3 was created to be an affordable electric car more people can afford. The model will cost $35,000 and those who have reserved cars should start seeing them mid 2018. The Model 3 will be able to travel over 200 miles, and go from zero to 60 mph in under six seconds.
Self-Driving Cars
Elon Musk is helping to popularise self driving cars by integrating them into Tesla. A self driving car is just a car that can drive itself, leaving the people in the car free to do whatever they want. Self-driving cars will eventually be able to drive much more reliably and safely than humans. Tesla’s cars come with eight surround cameras, providing 360 degrees of visibility, with 250 metres of range. The car also comes with a radar which is able to see through rain, fog, dust, and even cars in it’s way. Tesla’s Enhanced Autopilot will be able to change lanes on it’s own, park itself, and drive itself out of your garage when you summon it.
SolarCity
Solar City is a company Elon Musk is CEO of, which specialised in creating clean energy systems. The goal is to combat global warming while saving people money. The solar panels they invented to go on people’s rooftops, should save people money by helping them save on their monthly utility bill. The solar panels are completely inconspicuous and nothing like what you usually imagine when thinking of a solar panel. SolarCity is the largest solar energy services provider in the US, and one of the largest in the world.
Future Of Life Institute
Elon Musk has recently donated a large sum of money to the Future of Life Institute, an organisation that researches ways to help guarantee that we can live peacefully with technology. They work to make sure that coming technology will benefit humanity. They point out how in the past we learned to use technology by making mistakes and learning from those mistakes, but how that isn’t an option with more powerful technologies and innovations like nuclear weapons or automation. Elon Musk has expressed concerns about the coming artificial intelligence, so it’s no surprise he would donate so much money to help guarantee our safety.
Reusable Rockets
Elon Musk recently landed a reusable rocket without any mishaps. This means he is well on his way to solving one of space explorations biggest problems. One of the most expensive parts of space exploration is that the rocket is often destroyed when parts of it are left to sink in the ocean. This means that rockets have to be rebuilt every time. His reusable rockets will completely change this, and make the whole process much cheaper. The Falcon 9 rocket launched from the Kennedy Space Centre, and then landed only 9 minutes later without any problems.
Nevada Gigafactory
Musk plans on creating 500,000 new vehicles per year before the end of the decade, but to do this he needed the entire worldwide production of lithium ion batteries, which he didn’t have. In order to solve this problem he created the Nevada Gigafactory.
Colonising Mars
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Space X is planning on sending a small team of 10 people to Mars which will eventually flourish into an entire civilisation of 80,000 people. Tickets will cost about half a million dollars and will be sold to anyone willing to pay that much. Astronauts from Space X will be living on Mars by 2020 if everything goes according to plan. Mars is arguably one of the most hospitable planet in the solar system, due to it’s surface conditions and the fact that there’s water on Mars. Elon Musk has actually revealed that he plans for the colony to grow to a million people in the next 50-100 years. Musk revealed an Interplanetary Transport System, which uses the most powerful rocket ever created to propel a spaceship designed to carry at least 100 people to Mars.