Science Saturday: The Future is Near

Is Elon Musk Bruce Wayne? 
No, he doesn't sacrifice himself every night to rid the streets of scum and villainy, but he's pretty damn close. If you don't already know who Elon Musk is then fasten your seatbelt and prepare for this knowledge drop. Do you think Isaac Newton was the most badass scientist of the 1700's (if not all-time)? Do you think Bill Gates was badass in the 90's? Steve Jobs in the 2000's?

Well Elon Musk is the guy for the 2010's. So what has he done so far? Well he started off with founding PayPal, which he ended up selling for $1.5 billion to Ebay. Now he heads multiple projects, including involvement in R&D and engineering of Tesla Motor, SolarCity, Hyperloop, and most important for this feature SpaceX, but more on that later.

Been waiting real long to get that batman reference in. 

Breakthrough of the Week

Elon Musk's futuristic Grasshopper space rocket makes its highest jump. 

What's the Purpose?

Since the space shuttle program was shut down in 2011 the duty of transporting goods and astronauts into space has been delegated to the private sector. Elon Musk's answer? SpaceX and the Falcon9/Dragon spacecraft as well as the rocket in the video above, the Grasshopper. The Falcon9/Dragon are really just modern improvements on the classic rocket design so what makes the Grasshopper so special? Well if you watched the video you noticed that the rocket took off, stopped in mid air, and landed safely back on the platform - and no the video is not fake, ask anyone who lives near the launch base in Waco, TX. 

As you would expect from any private sector venture, this projects main concern is the cost of sending goods, including people, into space. The most expensive part of this process? Rocket technology as it stands is one-and-done, in that they use it once and then it is ejected into the Atlantic Ocean lost forever. The Grasshopper allows for re-use, so the cost of launching stuff into orbit becomes  dramatically cheaper since they'll only need to refuel the rocket each launch as opposed to rebuilding a new rocket each time. Makes sense, right? Keep in mind that a rocket is just a controlled explosion - enough explosives to propel something into space. Just for reference the Grasshopper was able to reach a height taller than the Sears Building in Chicago and then reach the launching pad safely. 

What does this Imply?

Again, costs. Believe it or not "the space revolution" that we are supposedly in has actually stalled since the end of the Cold War. What this means is a potential boom in the space industry. With cheaper launch costs, companies could send probes to asteroids to collect data and samples for mining, some companies could open inflatable (or modular) space hotels, and perhaps even the cost of getting people into space would be cheaper (some optimists are saying $2000/trip?!?!?!). Although imagine if, instead of NASA sending up a group every 2-3 months, imagine a group of astronauts from some private group going up every week.... woah.

Other Reasons Elon Musk is a BAMF.

Elon Musk founded Tesla Motors in 2003. They design, manufacture, and sell all-electric vehicles and electrical vehicle parts including building an entire infrastructure for their brand. Tesla is all over the news, all the time. Tesla this. Tesla That . I want one for xmas (my mom reads this blog). On top of Tesla, Musk wants to build a James Bond submarine car. 

Musk plans to build a hyperloop that can get someone from LA to SanFran in 30 minutes, and it costs significantly less than the proposed bullet train to be built in California 

Long live Elon Musk,

Nate