Billionaire Entrepreneur Elon Musk has seemingly on a mission to make the world a better place. He founded Tesla to reinvent the electric car and has been successful in creating sustainable battery storage that has made the electric vehicle’s popularity go mainstream.
Tesla also produces solar technology that is fed through homes using the company’s patented Powerwall. Tesla’s technological prowess has been used to combat energy crisis’ around the world in places like Australia and Hurricane-ravaged Puerto Rico.
Elon Musk also founded SpaceX, against the advice of just about everyone he knows. Against all odds, a pair of disaster, and doubt from the entire aerospace industry, SpaceX has become the leading private spaceflight company in the world and the pioneers behind reusable rocket technology.
The company’s breakthrough in launching, landing, and re-launching a single rocket booster to orbit has dramatically opened up space to small organizations, newer satellite companies, and developing nations.
Behind SpaceX’s accomplishments is an ultimate unifying vision: to make humans a multi-planetary species. We’ve heard Elon Musk’s speeches on colonization before, and we know how they will do it.
SpaceX has leased a ton of property at the Port of Los Angeles to build what they are calling the Big Falcon Rocket, or BFR. It is a large multi-purpose passenger ship that is being developed with what the company has learned from its Falcon 9 rocket and Dragon capsule. The massive ship will be able to carry humans to the moon and Mars on round trips.
But why? Elon Musk and many dignitaries in the science community like the late Stephen Hawking, has stressed the importance of expanding human presence throughout the solar system to ensure our survival. During recent buzzworthy events like SpaceX’s highly publicized Falcon Heavy launch, Musk said again, that space gives us a reason to be excited about the future, expanding on previous statements on “backing up” the human race on other planets.
Elon Musk took to Twitter this weekend to renew those vows in a response to a recent study that the universe may not be brimming with intelligent life like ours. The study says “new model predicts that we’re probably the only advanced civilization in the observable universe.” In response, Musk responded that this was “so strange” but elaborated more.
“This is why we must preserve the light of consciousness by becoming a spacefaring civilization & extending life to other planets,” said Musk. “It is unknown whether we are the only civilization currently alive in the observable universe, but any chance that we are is added impetus for extending life beyond Earth”
SpaceX is hoping to launch its first BRF test flights end of next year while it also begins actually flying humans to the space station for NASA on its Dragon capsule. The BFR will be in development for a few years before it actually starts launching missions to orbit. Elon Musk hopes to launch the first human crew to Mars by 2024 to begin building a city with the first installation being a fuel plant so BFR can make trips back to Earth and to further destinations in the solar system.
