Tag: Elon Musk

Beresheet, Israel’s First Lunar Lander Launched From Florida

Israel’s first lunar lander took flight on 7:15 am IST aboard SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket, which was launched from Cape Canaveral, Florida on February 22. This mission (called the Nusantara Satu mission), if deemed successful, will place Israel at the fourth place amongst nations which have already attained controlled touchdown on the moon. The list already includes countries like the United States, USSR and China. The unmanned robotic lander has been named ‘Beresheet’, which is a Hebrew translation for “in the beginning”.

About The Rockets And Payloads

The 23-storey-tall rocket disappeared into the sky as it made its way towards the moon. There were three sets of cargo on the Falcon 9, which is one of the most famous rockets in the arsenal of Elon Musk’s aerospace research organization, SpaceX. As mentioned before, one of the payloads was the 585 kg Beresheet lunar lander, whereas the other two payloads were intended for different purposes. One of them was Indonesia’s telecommunications satellite and the other was an experimental satellite for the US Air Force. It was also reported that the lunar lander took its place in earth’s orbit almost 34 minutes after its launch. 15 minutes later, two satellites separated from the Beresheet. The complete launch was broadcasted on SpaceX live webcast.

SpaceX Recycles Falcon 9’s Engine

Highest reentry heating to date. Burning metal sparks from base heat shield visible in landing video. Fourth relight scheduled for April. https://t.co/uq6TdMhgFN
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) February 22, 2019

The Falcon 9 and the lunar lander launch was not the only highlight of the launch. SpaceX added another milestone in its book of innovating technology by recycling its rockets. Mission control engineers and other people cheered from the launch site as the Falcon 9’s main-stage booster separated from the rest of the payload, shuttled back to Earth and had a safe landing on the “Of Course I Still Love You” droneship.

Main engine cutoff and stage separation confirmed. Second stage engine burn underway. pic.twitter.com/bDt2z62HGI
— SpaceX (@SpaceX) February 22, 2019

Bearing the name of legendary Sci-Fi author Iain M. Banks’ “fictional starships”, the drone-pad was positioned almost 500 km off Florida’s coast. The distant glow of the returning booster was clearly visible against the sky as the moon appeared. Noteworthy, this marked the booster’s third launch and landing after delivering Iridium-7 and SAOCOM 1A payloads to space.

Plans For Landing

Successful deployment of the SpaceIL lunar lander confirmed, starting the spacecraft’s two-month voyage to the Moon pic.twitter.com/iMlVYJHef3
— SpaceX (@SpaceX) February 22, 2019

Beresheet is expected to land on the near-side of the moon by mid-April. In doing so, it will travel through almost 6.5 million kilometres in space. Agreed, the direct path from the earth to the moon would be much shorter, but the lunar lander will travel via a more circular orbit. As per SpaceX plans, the gradually widening Earth orbit will help the probe to eventually reach the moon’s gravitational pull, leading to a controlled ‘soft’ landing.

Also Read: Elon Musk Promises Tesla Will Release Full Autonomous Driving Feature This Year

As of now, there is no plan to get the spacecraft back to earth. It will spend 2-3 days on the moon, photographing landing sites and measuring the moon’s magnetic field. Then the lunar probe will be shut down and it will remain on the lunar landscape for all eternity. The complete broadcast of the Nusantara Satu Mission can be found below.

February 22, 2019
Elon Musk Promises Tesla Will Release Full Autonomous Driving Feature This Year

Electronic car maker Tesla has been a driving force in the growth of the sales of electric cars. The company has introduced several futuristic features in their vehicles which have been really popular among buyers. Its CEO Elon Musk promised a while ago that a fully self-driving Tesla will be released by the year 2020. In a surprising move, the senior executive confirmed that the company will indeed be releasing the promised feature by the end of the year 2019.

Tesla & Self Driving Technology

Tesla cars are renowned for their Autopilot feature which makes use of several cameras and sensors present on the exterior of the vehicle. The feature, when used makes the car a partially autonomous vehicle. It still requires the driver to be attentive of their surroundings all the time, or the feature stops working. The feature is then disabled for the rest of the trip and won’t be accessible. It was touted as a revolutionary feature when it was introduced back in 2015 with the v7.0 update of the Tesla OS.

According to Elon Musk though, the hardware in current Tesla cars is capable of fully autonomous driving since October 2016. It is expected that when the fully autonomous driving feature arrives in the form of a software update, it will automatically support the cars manufactured after late 2016. He states that the feature will be so capable that the driver will be able to sleep while the car drives itself. The vehicle will be able to pick the driver up, drive and drop the rider off their destination. This feature will fully roll-out by 2020 until then manual monitoring is required.

Also read: Samsung Launches Galaxy Buds, Galaxy Fit And Galaxy Watch Active

Interestingly, Tesla always missed every deadline that Elon Musk has quoted earlier. So, the feature might take longer than expected to be fully ready. Reports suggest that the Tesla cars with full autonomous functionality are likely to be ready by sometime in 2020.

February 21, 2019
Elon Musk Releases All of Tesla’s Patents To Save Earth

Elon Musk, CEO of Tesla and SpaceX is known for being a genius, motor mouth billionaire. Under his leadership, Tesla has transitioned from being just another wannabe electric brand to the best selling one. His social media presence is mostly controversial. However, there is no denying that he has done a lot for the planet.

We now have one more reason to praise him. On Thursday, Elon announced that all of Tesla’s patent will be made public in a bid to save the planet.

All our patent are belong to youhttps://t.co/HPK5R5UMS6 pic.twitter.com/t99riofeCI
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) January 31, 2019

In a blog post shared by him on Twitter, Musk says “Tesla Motors was created to accelerate the advent of sustainable transport. If we clear a path to the creation of compelling electric vehicles, but then lay intellectual property landmines behind us to inhibit others, we are acting in a manner contrary to that goal. Tesla will not initiate patent lawsuits against anyone who, in good faith, wants to use our technology.”

Tesla Going Strong

This comes after a report in CNBC stated that Tesla has around 83 percent market share of electric cars in the US. The sales of the company also have increased over 50 percent since last year. With this step, Musk feels that more companies will make use of electric powered vehicles and would contribute to save the planet.

Read more: Nokia 8.1 With 6GB RAM And 128GB Storage Launched

Musk said in his blog post that he earlier filed patents to prevent big car companies from copying the technology. And also using the huge marketing and sales apparatus to take over the market. “We couldn’t have been more wrong. The unfortunate reality is the opposite,” he said, noting that electric or clean-fuel cars “at the major manufacturers are small to non-existent.”

The shares of Tesla declined following mixed reactions to the news.

February 1, 2019
SpaceX’s Starship Prototype Being Built At Breakneck Speeds

In September 2016, Elon Musk had revealed his plans to build a super-heavy launch vehicle that could transport people in space. It was called the Interplanetary Transport System (ITS). Then in 2017, Musk showed the world an updated design of that space ship. He also renamed it to Big Falcon Rocket (BFR) and the Big Falcon Spacecraft (BFS). Now the name has changed again. The new name of the craft is Starship and the work is already in progress.

What has changed?

The rocket will be made out of polished stainless steel. Elon Musk has already shown off that rockets can be reused upon re-entry to earth, thus reducing the cost of space travel. According to Musk, a smaller version of the Starship will also be built for testing. The ship is being built at their South Texas launch site. This is also where the first hop test will be conducted in June 2019.

The hull of the ship was originally supposed to be built with carbon composites (CCs) but a recent image shared by Elon Musk on Twitter suggests that it is being built with stainless steel alloy. The company is using 300 Series Stainless steel for the hull.

On being questioned if stainless steel would make the ship heavier, Elon Musk stated that the alloy is heavier compared to carbon composites at room temperature. However it is lighter and stronger at cryogenic temperatures ranging from –150 °C (-238 °F) to absolute zero (-273 °C; -460 °F).

Why Stainless Steel?

Stainless steel’s natural reflectivity also has it’s positives since it will require less heat shielding. The steel is coldformed at cryogenic temperatures. This process allows for the end product to be lighter and tougher than traditional hot-rolled steel.

SpaceX is also working on a staged combustion, methane fuelled rocket engine called Raptor. On being asked of be Raptor will be powered by electric turbo pumps, Elon further tweeted that the Raptor will not feature the electric pump fed engine. According to Musk, the Raptor turbopumps need 100,000 horsepower per engine.

The image shared by Elon looks like it is directly out of a Sci-fi movie and we hope Space X achieves what it has set out to achieve. 2019 will be a very important year for the company as it has set various goals in this year.

January 1, 2019
Tesla Is Working On Its Custom AI Chips Says Elon Musk

AI is the next big thing in the tech world, and big companies like Apple and Google have embraced that. According to multiple reports, Tesla CEO Elon Musk was talking up the company’s custom AI chips at machine learning conference NIPS, telling attendees that Tesla is “developing specialized AI hardware that we think will be the best in the world.”

According to The Register, Musk said, “I wanted to make it clear that Tesla is serious about AI, both on the software and hardware fronts. We are developing custom AI hardware chips”.

This report corroborates another report from back in September which claimed that about 50 people in Tesla are working on a custom AI chip. These include respected industry veteran Jim Keller, who previously worked at AMD and Apple, and joined Tesla in January 2016 as vice president of Autopilot Hardware Engineering.

Currently, the company uses Nvidia’s graphics cards to power its self-driving functionality but, with its own AI chip, it will be able to produce the main chip for its self-driving cars in-house. It would also mean improved performance since the company would be able to customise the chip according to its own usage.

AI chips might Tesla to achieve its goal of full autonomy faster than one would have expected. At the same conference, Musk conceded his ambitious timeline of two years to get to Level 5 self-driving, that is the level at which humans can go to sleep in the back seat.

Even if half of all new produced vehicles are autonomous, it's 2%/year that would be pushed to unemployed. @elonmusk thinks AGI is going to be an issue before self driving unemployment – thinks five to ten years before AGI beats humans generally. Insanely optimistic estimate O_o

— Smerity (@Smerity) December 8, 2017

These tweets from AI researcher Stephen Merity claim that Elon Musk predicts that AI might become exponentially smarter than humans in just five to ten years.

December 8, 2017
Elon Musk Shows Off First Photo Of SpaceX Space Suit

After SpaceX’s successful Falcon 9 rocket launch, Elon Musk posted a picture of his SpaceX space suit on Instagram. The image was shared via his official Instagram handle, confirming that the picture was not a mockup, but an actual shot of a fully functional suit.

https://www.instagram.com/p/BYIPmEFAIIn/

According to SpaceX’s CEO the suit actually works, and can withstand double the pressure of the vacuum of space. Taking cue from Boeing’s new spacesuit for its first commercial crewed space missions, the Space X space suit is designed to look svelte and tight to the body. As compared to other spacesuits, Elon Musk has emphasised on style with spacey white accents and lines on the suit.

Musk acknowledged that it was “incredibly hard” to get the right balance between the suit’s look and its function. Although, not specified, SpaceX suits are obviously meant to be worn by astronauts for safe travels inside the company’s Dragon Capsule. The pressure suits aren’t meant for space walks. Instead, are worn by astronauts during transport in case the capsule depressurizes. Once the SpaceX starts launching people to and from the International Space Station, these suits will be worn by NASA astronauts for the commercial crew program.

Not much have been divulged in terms of spacesuit detail, but Musk has promised follow up details including a full-body view reveal and many more images.

August 23, 2017
Google Collaborates With SolarCity To Make It Easier To Install Solar Panels In Residence

If we want a safe planet for the future, Solar energy is the way to go. Solar power has the potential to completely replace all of the contemporary fossil fuel based energy sources. There are many initiatives underway to make access to solar panels more affordable and accessible. Google has been known for its affection for renewable energy research and now the company is partnering with SolarCity to make it easier for people to install solar panels in their homes.

SolarCity is a company founded by Tesla chief Elon Musk. The company assists people in installing solar power in their residence or place of business. It designs, finances and installs solar energy systems, performs energy efficiency audits and retrofits and even builds charging stations for electric vehicles. SolarCity at present has over 1,90,000 customers and the facilities created by them have generated about one gigawatt of power.

Google will collaborate with SolarCity to make it easier for folks to install Solar panels.

Google will be setting up a fund worth $300 million for the residential side of SolarCity’s business. This coupled with SolarCity’s new financing structure will raise the company’s funds to $750 million. This fund will boost efforts to assist homeowners to install rooftop solar panels.

Homeowners can get in touch with SolarCity, who will create a customized design for the house. SolarCity then looks at the electricity bills paid by the owner and offers them a rate much lower than the power company. The user just has to pay a monthly solar rental along with the electricity charge as agreed. The maintenance costs of the solar panels will also be taken care by Google and SolarCity. The companies earn an income from the excess electricity sold to the grid by the house.

The arrangement between the consumer and the companies will be rent based. The rental term is usually set for 20 years after which the consumer would have the option to buy the system or give it back to the company. Presently the initial price tag for installation is $10,000, so it is still out of reach of an average consumer. But as more players come to the market, the rates are bound to drop down.

Google and Elon have shared a rather friendly camaraderie. Google has recently placed a massive bet on Elon’s plan of setting up space internet. In fact, Google’s founder Larry Page has said that he’d rather give his billions to Elon than give it to charity. SolarCity is a unique initiative that will not just be beneficial to the buyers and companies but will also set-up a profitable business model that others can emulate and help create the solar revolution.

February 27, 2015
Google Reportedly Launching its Own Wireless Carrier Service This Year

Google is the front runner in the Internet search business and from the recent announcement, it is clear that it has plans to conquer space as well. The company has partnered with Elon Musk to connect the world through space-based internet. Now, recent reports have surfaced which say that Google will penetrate deep into the telecom sector by launching its own wireless service.

According to the report, Google plans to directly sell the mobile phone plans to the end customers. The company will be handling calls and mobile data. Google is in talks with Sprint and T-Mobile to buy wholesale access of these carriers. If sources are to be believed then users can see the Google network later this year.

Codenamed ‘Nova’, the project is led by the Executive of Google Nick Fox. The firm wants to offer creative plan pricing, says a leading publishing daily. By bringing out a carrier service, Google would be able to have a better control on the devices manufactured by them.

It’s still under wraps that where the company will launch its services, what will be the charges and what all manufacturers are involved. As the internet giant is dealing with Sprint and T-Mobile (available in the US), it will affect the US market and the carriers in the regions will be pressurised to cut down the price in order to sustain their user base.

January 22, 2015
Google Partners With Elon to Make Space-Based Internet a Reality

Just a few days back, SpaceX chief, Elon Musk was in the news again when he talked about his audacious plan to connect the world through space-based internet. He said that this would not just benefit the internet users around the world; it will also help connect those last 3 Billion people who still don’t have access to the internet. The plan as anyone can expect would be expensive, but seems like Elon may now have a partner with one of the deepest pockets in the business; the search giant Google.

Elon has stated that the cost of setting up the constellation of satellites would be above $10 Billion. He claims that this system of providing internet would be speedier and more convenient to spread around. The satellites are expected to be connected through a laser based system as Elon doesn’t have rights to use radio waves.

Google will be investing $1Billion in Satellite Internet initiative of SpaceX

According to the Wall Street Journal, Google is interested in investing $1 Billion into the project to kick off the initial stages of the development of the constellation. This deal would be beneficial for Google too as the internet behemoth would find a massive new user base. Google has been known for investmenting in multiple areas to spread the reach of the internet around the world. Previously the company has invested in Project Loon that is an initiative to provide internet through giant helium balloons circling the globe that are equipped to beam Wi-Fi signals down below. Along with that the company was also planning a massive investment in undersea cables to bring 60 Tbps Internet connectivity for Asia.

The main competition to the SpaceX initiative is Greg Wyler’s OneWeb project backed by Qualcomm and Virgin .

Google was also working with Greg Wyler whose project is almost similar to SpaceX’s plan. Greg left Google last year to form his own satellite company called OneWeb. The company is now backed by Virgin founder Richard Branson and chip maker Qualcomm. Richard had earlier said that Elon doesn’t have the spectrum license, and there isn’t a space for a competing company, so SpaceX should join OneWeb’s initiative. But it seems now that with Google’s blessings on their side, SpaceX can make their plans, a reality. It will also be interesting to see how the company manages to provide the service without access to radio waves. Get ready for some big corporate fights on this issue.

For Google, the initiative, to bring the internet through satellites, will also be cheaper than laying those expensive submarine cables. And the rest of humanity will benefit from the access to the internet. This sounds like a win-win for all. The icing on the cake is Elon’s hopes of setting up a human station on Mars from the revenue of the satellite based internet.

January 21, 2015
Elon Musk Plans to Connect Everyone with Space-Based Internet

If you ever hear an audacious, game-changing technology initiative, there is a high possibility it’s the brainchild of Elon Musk. After taking on spaceships and electric cars, Elon plans to create a vast network of satellites which will provide high-speed internet, that will benefit the rural folks untouched by the internet.

Elon spoke of his plans at a SpaceX conference in Seattle where the company is starting a new office. He said that he wants to establish his space internet system as a rival to fibre optics. Light waves travel 40% faster in the vacuum of space than through optical fibre cables. Musk will be opening a new office in Seattle and he plans to go on a hiring spree for space and aeronautics professionals to boost his efforts.

Elon’s Space X is the most successful private space enterprise.

These internet beaming satellites will be placed in an orbit 750 miles (1207 km) above the Earth’s surface. The traditional communication satellites are placed in a geosynchronous orbit at an altitude of up to 22000 miles (35400 km). Elon says that by placing the satellites closer to the earth’s surface, the electromagnetic waves would have to travel a smaller distance and hence provide faster internet. He adds that with his technique, instead of sending data packets over long terrestrial networks like undersea cables, they can be bounced off various satellites. The data packets would be sent directly to satellites where they will bounce off multiple satellites before reaching the one closest to the destination.

There are many efforts, currently being undertaken to connect the last three billion who are still oblivious to the internet. Facebook founder, Mark Zuckerberg’s Internet.org and Google’s Project Loon are some of those initiatives. The Internet is making us globally connected and will help boost global cooperation.

The plan is to create a vast network of satellites which beam internet directly to the consumers

As of now, this project sounds too audacious, even for Elon Musk. He says that this initiative will cost about $10 Billion, but once established, his company will use it as a revenue source to build a city on Mars. He also doesn’t have the rights to the spectrum to build the service as of yet. So it remains to be seen how he takes this plan forward.

Elon’s bold connectivity plans doesn’t end at connecting everyone on Earth. He wants to set up a communications infrastructure on Mars too. His company is actively working on prospects of establishing a Martian colony in the coming future. You have to give credit to Elon Musk; he wants to make sure that even though people would be living in a settlement on Mars, they would not be devoid of their favorite websites.

January 17, 2015
Make AI Beneficial to Humanity and Prevent it from Taking Over, says Experts letter

Artificial Intelligence (AI) has become a popular topic of public conversation. It all started since SpaceX and Tesla chief Elon Musk, and Physicist Stephen Hawking warned against creating an AI system that can think on their own. Now the experts in the field of AI research are coming together to sign an open letter to pledge for the creation of AI that can be controlled by humans and is beneficial to our lives.

The letter was released by the Future of Life Institute (FLI) which is a volunteer-only research organization. It focuses on potential risks from the development of human-level Artificial Intelligence. The founders of the institute include Jaan Tallin, who is the co-founder of Skype and “Mad” Max Tegmark, who is an MIT professor known for his unorthodox ideas. The Scientific Advisory Board of the Institute includes folks such as Morgan Freeman, Alan Alda, Stephen Hawking, Elon Musk and some other great minds. So when the letter comes from people who are held in high honor in science, the letter gains credibility and needs to be taken seriously.

The letter is signed by the top experts in the field including Prof. Hawking and Elon Musk

In essence, the letter asks researchers to put more emphasis on the creation of an AI system which helps humanity but can also be controlled by humanity. AI-based systems such as voice recognition and self-driving cars are close to being accepted by the masses, at this juncture, it’s important to understand the potential challenges it might pose.

The team at FLI has also attached a research document which highlights the priorities in AI research. The paper shows the multitude of uses of AI and how it can be robust as well as beneficial to humanity. The document encourages the fields of law, philosophy, economics, computer security and other fields of AI to be involved in interdisciplinary collaboration to set the priorities for AI research.

Several AI based system such as autonomous cars are reaching the masses, so it’s important to research on potential challenges of the thechnology in the future.

The signatories of the letter are also some of the prominent folks in science. A number of professors MIT, Oxford, Harvard and other premier institutions have signed the letter. Also, several researchers from the industry, such as experts from IBM’s Watson Supercomputer team and Microsoft research have showed their support to the letter.

Artificial Intelligence is already involved in many aspects of our lives such as speech recognition, translation and is expected to be more intertwined with our lives. It is important to put heavy focus on the topic and have a public conversation about it. There have been warning’s about the potential fallout of these systems, and they may end up taking charge over their human masters someday. Experts agree that a framework needs to be established to prevent a probable future that looks like something out of the Terminator or Matrix films.

January 12, 2015
Elon Musk Cautions Against Creating Artificial Intelligence

In the knowledge and information age that we live in now, a great amount of research is targeted towards creating Artificial Intelligence (AI). The goal is to create a computing system which is as sentient as a human being with same levels of intelligence. But a barrage of people have warned against the creation of such a machine. Adding to the list is Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk.

At MIT’s annual AeroAstra Centennial Symposium, Elon Musk said that developing an artificial intelligence maybe akin to summoning the demon. He explained, “You know those stories where there’s the guy with the pentagram, and the holy water, and he’s like – Yeah, he’s sure he can control the demon? Doesn’t work out”.

He said that there is an immediate need for a regulatory oversight over the efforts of AI development. “I’m increasingly inclined to think there should be some regulatory oversight may be at the national and international level, just to make sure that we don’t do something very foolish.”

Musk also warned that HAL 900 is a Puppy dog in comparison to what humans can create

He went ahead to call it the biggest existential threat to humanity and added that the HAL 9000 from 2001 A Space Odyssey would look like a puppy dog in comparison to what humans can build.

As a trusted name in the field of scientific research, this warning is concerning for folks who were dreaming of incorporating a JARVIS-like system in their house someday. Movies like Terminator, Matrix and many others have warned us about the consequences of AI taking over human civilization. A system that can get instant access to all of humanity’s knowledge in the first couple of seconds of its existence may indeed revolt against its imperfect human masters and overpower them. This is one cautionary tale that should be taken notice by not just the stakeholders but the entire population. We might inadvertently lose the alpha predator tag to our own creation and become its prey.

October 28, 2014
Tesla Opens All Patents and Elon Musk is Officially The Best Human Being Ever

There have been men who conquered massive lands. There are men who broke the facade of ignorance and opened the world to a new understanding of the world. There have been men who have brought massive socio-economic-political changes for the masses. Almost every generation past has had the opportunity to get an encounter with greatness, men like Buddha, Newton, Darwin, Faraday, Gandhi and many more have had the ability to think of the greater good. Just when we thought the ages of the greats are gone, our generation got its hero and he is Elon Musk, the owner of the electric car company Tesla Motors.

The Roadster is the best looking and performing EV in the world

Tesla motors is a pioneering institution. It has breathed in a new life into the Electric Vehicle (EV) technology and thereby creating a true alternative to the obnoxious gas emitting, fossil fuel vehicles we use presently. The company’s first car, the Tesla Roadster was the first EV to have a range of 320 KM in a single charge; with a top speed of 201 Km/h (yes you read that right). The company released a Sedan called the Model S which is one of the best looking sedans out there. There is also the sexy Model X which is a SUV-Sedan hybrid.

Yesterday, Tesla became the first car manufacturer to open all its patents for anyone to use, for free. The technology Elon and his team strived so hard to achieve, almost reaching a point of bankruptcy and affecting his personal life.

Elon Musk inside the Astronaut capable Dragon V2

Elon wrote in his blog titled All Our Patent Are Belong To You that “we feel compelled to create patents out of concern that the big car companies would copy our technology and then use their massive manufacturing, sales and marketing power to overwhelm Tesla. We couldn’t have been more wrong.” This is rather true even 6 years after the release of the Tesla Roadster, no big company is making any major strides or even showing interest in the EV technology. Just about 1% of the Cars on the roads are electric.

He also stated that Tesla’s competition isn’t the small handful EV manufacturers, but the mega car companies who still insist on manufacturing dirty cars. These fossil fueled cars are the case of environmental changes like the recent increase in obnoxious gases in Delhi.

The most significant aspect of this story is that it directly questions the validity of patents. Patents were a great way of giving recognition to people who have created something out of the ordinary; innovators. But slowly the system has degraded into a means to enrich intellectual property lawyers and corporations. In this kind of situation smaller players can’t innovate because the bigger companies hold patents on miniscule features. The system that was supposed to encourage innovation is now the biggest hindrance in the development of our technology.

EV’s like the Nissan Leaf are still not efficient enough like their gas powered competitors

While major companies are working on how to make hybrid cars, something that makes the environmental types and the petroleum giants happy, Tesla has decided to take them all on. With these patents you can design your own electric motor with Tesla efficiency. The best part, as the motor is tiny, once you retrofit your car, you can have an extra boot space where that huge combustion engine used to be. Tesla has also successfully beaten some of the best cars in overall performance.

We now know for a fact that global warming is the single greatest threat to our existence. We also know the reason for it is us and our expenditure of non-renewable fossil fuels. Elon has also put massive investment into the Solar City project which provides energy services to homeowners, businesses, and government/non-profit organizations. In just one hour the sun gives more energy than is needed by the entire humanity in an entire year. Solar should definitely be the highest priority of every business and government.

Luckily for India the present government is planning to ferociously expand solar power in India with a target of reaching 400,000,000 people by 2019. It has also promised to give every home at least ‘one light bulb’s worth of electrification’ via solar, as well as deploy solar-powered agriculture pumps.

Elon’s Space X is the most successful private space enterprise.

Elon is also the founder of private space company Space X which has now got a NASA contract to service the International Space Station. The company recently showcased the Dragon V2 spaceship which is capable of carrying astronauts. He also wants to have a Mars mission to give humanity a second planetary home as a plan B.

Tesla Motors is a phenomenal company and it truly upholds the name of the greatest inventor of the 19^th Century, Nikola Tesla. Most of us don’t even know his name but he has greatly affected our lives in many ways. We can ramble on and on about his greatness, but we’d rather you watch this awesome video.

More and more manufacturers need to use Tesla’s ingredients in their cars and switch to EV technology as soon as possible. It will take at least 20-30 years from now to a majority electric vehicle economy. For this, first and foremost tough regulation have to be placed on gas giants and EV manufacturing should be subsidized by the governments across the world.

Elon was the inspiration behind Robert Downey’s Iron Man

Elon’s superpower is that his endeavors are inspiring for the people of the world and that makes him a real superhero, no wonder he is the real life inspiration behind Robert Downey Jr.’s Tony Stark from Iron Man. He also did a cameo in Iron Man 2.

Only time will tell how this massive open innovation will affect our future.

June 14, 2014
SpaceX Dragon V2 : A New Spaceship is Born

California based Private space enterprise SpaceX has finally revealed its Dragon V2 Space Capsule. The dragon V2 is different from its predecessor because it is capable of carrying an extremely valuable cargo, the human Astronauts.

The company’s owner Elon Musk is the real life inspiration for Iron Man. He is a phenomenal human being. He is the co-founder of PayPal, CEO and CTO of SpaceX and CEO of the world’s best electric car brand called Tesla Motors. He plans to bring in a transportation revolution with his Hyperloop proposal. He is one of the most respected and revolutionary tech entrepreneurs.

SpaceX was founded in 2002 with rocket propulsion engineer Tom Mueller. The companies economical space travel model was so well appreciated, that in 2008 SpaceX was awarded a $1.6 billion contract with NASA. As per the agreement Space X will send 12 flights of its Falcon 9 rocket and Dragon spacecraft to the International Space Station(ISS). With the retirement of the iconic Space Shuttle program in 2011, American ingenuity in space was at peril. Luckily Space X was there for rescue.

The Dragon spacecraft first docked with the ISS in 2012

The first SpaceX Dragon spacecraft successfully launched and docked at the ISS in 2012. It was basically a test mission to assess the capabilities of the Dragon to deliver payload to the ISS. Since then, it has completed 3 of its 12 missions. These were Cargo missions but the Dragon V2 will be capable of human flights which are extremely important considering our severely restricted means of access to space. Space research also is facing several issues because of the increased tensions between the West and Russia.

The 4.5 meter tall Dragon V2 will be the first space craft to land vertically on any surface like a helicopter. This will take us miles ahead in terms of reusability and making space travel more economical. Space X experimented with the Grasshopper rocket to achieve vertical launch and land capability. This technology will help in reducing the costs of building new rockets for every mission.

The Spacecraft has multiple backups for safety. It is powered by a main and backup engine which will ensure safe landings of the astronauts on surface; if one fails the other will take over. Dragon V2 also has a parachute as the ultimate time tested backup for landing.

Dragon V2 is fully capable of transporting Astronauts

The need for the manned SpaceX Dragon 2 to succeed is direr considering that Russia plans to do away with the ISS missions by 2020. Currently the Russian Soyuz is the only way to carry astronauts to and from the ISS. This will be a big step back for all of us if we don’t have access to space based research anymore.

Apart from Space X, Boeing and Sierra Nevada Corporation Space Systems have also cleared first step of NASA certification. Even President Barack Obama has encouraged more private investment in space exploration to speed up the research process.

Elon Musk wishes to now enter into the arena of planetary exploration with a trip to Mars. It is the only way we can ascertain the survival of the future for our species against the threats faced by our own self (global warming, wars, etc) or circumstances which are not in our control (asteroid strike or a super volcano eruption). We are in essence surviving on a living planet highly capable of getting bruised.

Space exploration has always been an aspirational area of interest for everyone, it entices us all. Throughout our history the heavens have enticed us. A scientific colleague of Carl Sagan once told him about a Stone Age tribe which was ignorant about all our scientific and technological achievements but they knew one thing, we had landed on the moon. It was a disappointment to them to know that no one goes there anymore.

In the last century, we have taken the human curiosity worth of 20,000 centuries to flight by gaining the ability to leave the surface and take a look back at our grand blue planet. If we stop now, we won’t just be disappointing that one Stone Age tribe, but all our predecessors who went to great lengths to ascertain the survival of our species. Elon Musk and the engineers at Space X deserve our gratitude for keeping that hope and curiosity alive and giving it wings to fly high.

May 31, 2014