ARTICLE

ELON MUSK – A DISRUPTIVE THINKER, INVENTOR AND ENTREPRENEUR

SUROJIT MOOKHERJEE*

South African entrepreneur is now known worldwide for founding Tesla Motors and SpaceX, which launched a landmark commercial spacecraft in 2012.Born in South Africa in 1971, Elon Musk became a multimillionaire in his late 20s when he sold his start-up company, Zip2, to a division of Compaq Computers. He achieved more success by founding X.com in 1999, SpaceX in 2002 and Tesla Motors in 2003. Musk made headlines in May 2012, when SpaceX launched a rocket that would send the first commercial vehicle to the International Space Station. He bolstered his portfolio with the purchase of SolarCity in 2016, and cemented his standing as a leader of industry by taking on an advisory role in the early days of President Donald Trump’s administration. This write up gives a short sketch of his life and remarkable achievements.

Introduction to become a part of it, launching his first company, Zip2 on of a Canadian mother and a South African Corporation. An online city guide, Zip2 was soon providing father, Elon Reeve Musk was born on June 28, content for the new websites of both The New York Times S 1971, in Pretoria, South Africa. He spent his early and the Chicago Tribune, and in 1999, a division of childhood with his brother Kimbal and sister Tosca in South Compaq Computer Corporation bought Zip2 for $307 Africa, and at 10, the introverted Elon developed an interest million in cash and $34 million in stock options. in computers. During this time, his parents divorced. He Also in 1999, Musk co-founded X.com, an online taught himself how to program, and when he was 12 he financial services/payments company. An X.com acquisition made his first software sale—of a game he created called the following year led to the creation of PayPal as it is Blastar. At age 17, in 1989, he moved to Canada to attend known today, and in October 2002, PayPal was acquired Queen’s University and avoid mandatory service in the by eBay for $1.5 billion in stock. Before the sale, Musk South African military, but he left in 1992 to study business and physics at the University of Pennsylvania. He graduated owned 11 percent of PayPal stock. with an undergraduate degree in economics and stayed for Never one to rest on his laurels, Musk founded his a second bachelor’s degree in physics. third company, Space Exploration Technologies After leaving Penn, Elon Musk headed to Stanford Corporation, or SpaceX, in 2002 with the intention of University in to pursue a Ph.D in energy physics. building spacecraft for commercial space travel. By 2008, However, his move was timed perfectly with the Internet SpaceX was well established, and NASA awarded the boom, and he dropped out of Stanford after just two days company the contract to handle cargo transport for the International Space Station—with plans for astronaut * Associate Director (retd.), IBM India. transport in the future—in a move to replace NASA’s own M-1, Vidyasagar Niketan , Sector -1, Salt Lake, Kolkata - space shuttle missions. 700064, Email - [email protected]

282 SCIENCE AND CULTURE, SEPTEMBER-OCTOBER, 2017 The boundless potential of space exploration and the orbit, a distance at which the satellite would lock into an preservation of the future of the human race have become orbital path that matched the Earth’s rotation. In February the cornerstones of Musk’s abiding interests, and toward 2015, SpaceX launched another Falcon 9 fitted with the these he has founded the Musk Foundation, which is Deep Space Climate Observatory (DSCOVR) satellite, dedicated to space exploration and the discovery of aiming to observe the extreme emissions from the sun that renewable and clean energy sources. affect power grids and communications systems on Earth. Like the rest of us, Elon Musk has a handful of life In March 2017, SpaceX enjoyed another breakthrough goals. Unlike the rest of us, one of those life goals is to with the successful test flight and landing of a Falcon 9 put 1,000,000 people on Mars. rocket made from reusable parts, a development that opened the door for more affordable space travel. SpaceX has Naturally-occurring extinction events can be caused already made 8 successful landings of the stage 1 rocket by a lot of things. The universe is a violent, hostile place engine both on land and as well as on sea. According to and we’re a group of fragile organisms living in a delicate SpaceX, landing on sea is cheaper as it consumes less fuel. balance of precise conditions. We’re around, for now, In April 2017 , they successfully used a recycled stage 1 because the universe is currently allowing us to be. This engine to lift a rocket to the ISS for supplying cargo. led to Musk’s dream of having the need to have a ‘back- This will help to economize space travel and is an essential up’ of the human civilization which can be self sustaining feature for interplanetary space travel by humans. and capable of growing even if the human specie living on the ‘parent’ earth happens to get destroyed. Not only to sustain , he thinks , that expanding to other planetary systems is also necessary for the long term survival of this specie. Some of his exciting ventures are discussed briefly.

SpaceX On May 22, 2012, Musk and SpaceX made history when the company launched its Falcon 9 rocket into space with an unmanned capsule. The vehicle was sent to the International Space Station with 1,000 pounds of supplies for the astronauts stationed there, marking the first time a private company had sent a spacecraft to the International Figure 2 : The platform being towed to the harbour. Space Station. Plan for Colonizing Mars – Making Humans a In December 2013, SpaceX notched another milestone Multi Planetary Species : Musk strongly believes that time when Falcon 9 carried a satellite to geosynchronous transfer has come for the ‘human civilization’ to have it’s own ‘back-up’ as it faces distinct threat of extinction on account of several potential threat areas like – asteroid collision , epidemic viral disease , nuclear war or even uncontrolled rogue super AI beings. And what better than to establish a human colony in one of the nearby planets/moon and then to further expand to multi planetary systems. He has a ‘blueprint’ for a 1 million population colony in Mars and he thinks this is the critical mass required for sustainable existence in that planet. Despite its inhospitable environment, Musk insists Mars is the best candidate for supporting life, as opposed to Venus’ high-pressure atmosphere and Mercury’s close proximity to the sun. He further suggests Mars is the place to be, because a day on Mars is very similar to one on Figure 1 : Landing of Stage 1 engine of Falcon 9 rocket on a floating Earth, stretching 24.5 hours. Its atmosphere, he believes, drone platform. would support plant life.

VOL. 83, NOS. 9–10 283 Musk’s estimates the cost of a trip to Mars by Meet Model X revisiting the first Moon landing in present-day dollars, Model X is the safest, quickest, and most capable which breaks down to around $10 billion per person. He sport utility vehicle in history. Designed as a family car suggests targeting a “ticket to Mars” price around $200,000 without compromise, Model X comes standard with all- per person, a price point he says will be a “bit tricky” to wheel drive, ample seating for up to seven adults, standard reach, given the need to reduce the cost of interplanetary active safety features, and up to 295 miles of range on a human travel by 50,000 times. Even so, he says he expects single charge. And it’s the quickest SUV in production, the ticket price to eventually drop below $100,000 after capable of accelerating from zero to 60 miles per hour in an initial base is setup and spacecraft reusability further 2.9 seconds. brings down the cost of transportation. The figs 1 and 2 show Falcon 9’s stage 1 rocket engine being safely landed on a floating drone platform. Nine such successful landings and recovery of the costly Stage 1 engine has been done both on land and sea and recently one of the recovered engine was used to fly a second time to send cargo to the International Space Station. The biggest question, still pressing in just about everyone’s mind, actually has less to do with how humans will reach Mars and more to do with when. SpaceX Figure 3 : Model X-SUV announced plans earlier this year to send an unmanned ≈ vessel dubbed Red Dragon to Mars as early as 2018, Accelerating Sustainable Transport – Model 3 and Musk has previously said he thought it would be Model 3 combines real world range, performance, possible to land on Mars by 2025. When it came time to safety and spaciousness into a premium sedan that only discuss the timeline for a SpaceX trip to Mars Musk waxed Tesla can build. Their most affordable car yet, Model 3 poetic over the 14-year history of the company, which he achieves 215 miles of range per charge , accelerating from founded, before finally saying that he plans for SpaceX to zero to 60 mph in less than 6 seconds ,while starting at make its first true grab at the Red Planet as early as 2023. only $35,000 before incentives. Model 3 is designed to Tesla Motors - Zero Emission Car : Another Musk attain the highest safety ratings in every category. venture is Tesla Motors, a company dedicated to producing affordable, mass-market electric cars. Five years after its formation, the company in 2008 unveiled the Roadster, a sports car capable of accelerating from 0 to 60 mph in 3.7 seconds, as well traveling nearly 250 miles between charges of its lithium ion battery. With a stake in the company taken by Daimler and a strategic partnership with Toyota, Tesla Motors launched its initial public offering in June 2010, raising $226 million. Figure 4 : Model 3 – car for the masses. Additional successes include the Model S, the company’s first electric sedan. Capable of covering 265 Tesla’s mission is to accelerate the world’s transition miles between charges, the Model S was honored as the to sustainable energy. To achieve that goal, we must 2013 Car of the Year by Motor Trend magazine. produce electric vehicles in sufficient volume to force change in the automobile industry. With a planned In April 2017, it was announced that Tesla had production rate of 500,000 cars per year in the latter half surpassed General Motors to become the most valuable of this decade, Tesla alone will require today’s entire U.S. car maker. The news was an obvious boon to Tesla, worldwide production of lithium ion batteries. The Tesla which was looking to ramp up production and release its Gigafactory was born of necessity and will supply enough Model 3 sedan later that year. batteries to support our projected vehicle demand.

284 SCIENCE AND CULTURE, SEPTEMBER-OCTOBER, 2017 are at their best when they’re combined. As one company, Tesla (storage) and SolarCity (solar) can create fully integrated residential, commercial and grid-scale products that improve the way that energy is generated, stored and consumed,” read a statement on Tesla’s website about the deal. This innovation from Musk’s company is replacing conventional roof top solar panels by glass tiles Figure 5 : Giga Factory for manufacturing Li ion batteries. which double up as both roofing material as well as solar electricity producer thus preserving the aesthetic values of the house. This will be a big attraction for the ‘house-owner’. The solar roofs will be made of tempered glass in four styles: Tuscan, Slate, Textured, and Smooth. The innovative tiles come with solar cells invisible to a casual observer, a color louver film layer to enable the tiles to blend in, and a tempered glass layer. Made with Figure 6 : House with electricity generating tempered glass tiles. tempered glass, solar roof tiles are The name Gigafactory comes from the factory’s more than three times stronger than planned annual battery production capacity of 35 giga watt- standard roofing tiles. Tesla says the electricity from the hours (GWh). “Giga” is a unit of measurement that roofs can be immediately utilized or stored in a Powerwall represents “billions”. One GWh is the equivalent of battery. These tiles come with a warranty for the life of generating (or consuming) one billion watts for one hour— the house. one million times that of one kWh. When completed , this According to Musk, solar makes the most sense for factory will be the second largest factory in the world, after large-scale deployment, he said, because the sun is the Boeing factory for assembling the 747 jets. essentially a giant fusion reactor in the sky. “If you wanted Solar City – Powering United States with to power the entire United States with solar panels, it would Renewable Energy : In August 2016, in Musk’s continuing take a fairly small corner of Nevada or Texas or Utah; effort to promote and advance sustainable energy and you only need about 100 miles by 100 miles of solar panels products for a wider consumer base his Tesla Motors Inc. to power the entire United States. The batteries you need announced an all-stock deal purchase of SolarCity Corp., to store the energy, so you have 24/7 power, is 1 mile by a company Musk had helped his cousins start in 2006. He 1 mile. One square-mile,” he said. His plan includes is a majority shareholder in each entity. “Solar and storage combining rooftop solar, like Tesla’s new solar roof, with

Figure 7 : View of tempered glass tiles.

VOL. 83, NOS. 9–10 285 utility-scale solar. During the transition, Musk says that we’d likely need to rely on transition power like wind, hydro, geothermal and nuclear energy as we make the adjustment. During that time, we’d need to focus on building up infrastructure, along with encouraging local solar power to limit the amount of transmission lines that would need to be laid.

Elon Musk could be the Future of Travel

“While technology is Figure 8 : What is Hyperloop revolutionizing many facets of our lives, we have not seen a radical change in transportation since the Wright brothers introduced air travel over 100 years ago.” - Hyperloop One CEO Rob Lloyd. This is not really a new concept. Rocketry pioneer Robert Goddard in 1909 proposed a vacuum train very similar in concept to the Hyperloop. In 1972, the RAND Corp. conceived a supersonic underground railway called the Vactrain. The idea was waiting for the right combination of Figure 9 : Schematic representing travel time for various transport modes. talent, technology, and business case to become a reality. various stations on the low pressure tube with rotors contained in each capsule. Passengers may enter and exit This picture summarizes what Hyperloop is intended Hyperloop at stations located either at the ends of the tube, to achieve. Cut the flight travel time of 3 hrs between or branches along the tube length. The major advantages Melbourne and Sydney to 55 minutes, as an example, or of the system are ability to use solar power for all the travelling from New York to Washington DC in 30 minutes. energy requirement, can be erected fast on pillars, thus This then becomes the fifth mode of transport other than using very little land and on the whole would be cheaper Road, Rail, Boat and Aircraft for intercity travel up to say than train travel. The expected travel cost is $20 per person 1500 kms. For anything beyond that air travel would be for a 35 minute. journey between Los Angeles and San cheaper. Francisco. In this technology, travel speeds of 1000 kms/hr is Just as aircraft climb to high altitudes to travel through being targeted, wherein a ‘pod or capsule’ carrying humans less dense air, Hyperloop encloses the capsules in a reduced or cargo travels in a closed tube having partial vacuum. pressure tube. The pressure of air in Hyperloop is about Overcoming air resistance and friction are the major 1/6 the pressure of the atmosphere on Mars. This is an challenges and these are being tackled through combination operating pressure of 100 Pascals, which reduces the drag of various technologies. The capsules are supported on a force of the air by 1,000 times relative to sea level cushion of air, featuring pressurized air and aerodynamic conditions and would be equivalent to flying above 150,000 lift (something similar to air-hockey ). The capsules are feet altitude. The capsules travel at 760 mph (1,220 kph, accelerated via a magnetic linear accelerator affixed at Mach 0.99 at 68 ºF or 20 ºC).

286 SCIENCE AND CULTURE, SEPTEMBER-OCTOBER, 2017 times can thus be drastically reduced. The same carts if enclosed as a’pod’ then the principle’s of Hyperloop transportation can be used to achieve travel speeds of 900 – 1000 kmph. The entrepreneur has also

Figure 10 : Hyperloop passenger capsule subsystems. pursued an interest in Artificial Intelligence. He became co-chair of the nonprofit research company OpenAI, which launched Other Innovations in late 2015 with the stated mission of advancing digital The solution to today’s growing traffic problem across intelligence to benefit humanity. Additionally, in 2017 it cities and even inter-city travel is to either go up in the was revealed that Musk was backing a venture called air or go down the earth in tunnels. Unlike flying cars , , which intends to create devices to be implanted tunnels are not affected by weather , is safer and less in the human brain and help people merge with disturbing to those on the ground. The crux of the problem software. S in tunneling technology is to make tunnel boring fasted and cheaper by about 10 times current costs. Musk’s latest References idea is to test this out at his facility in SpaceX and has 1. How and Why SpaceX will colonize Mars - Blog post by Tim verbally commented that he has an approval for building Urban tunnels connecting New York to Washington DC with 2. Wikipedia Hyperloop pods for carrying cars. The company he has 3. www.Tesla.com formed for this purpose is “ ”. 4. YouTube Videos on Elon Musk 5. http://inhabitat.com/tag/hyperloop/ The idea behind this is to make cars go into tunnels 6. http://inhabitat.com/elon-musk-reveals-his-big-plan-for-colonizing- and then be transported by electrically driven and fully mars/ automated carts at speeds of 150 kmph. Intra-city travel 7. Whitepaper on Hyperloop – Elon Musk

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