Why and how Elon Musk founded SpaceX? (SpaceX timeline)
Humans have always looked up into the night sky, dreaming about space.
There is something mysterious and romantic that amaze us every time
we try to think about the universe, and the idea of overcoming the force of gravity to
reach orbital velocities was always in our mind. Until the day it happened. It was Oct. 4, 1957.
The Soviet launched the first artificial satellite, Sputnik 1, into space.
Four years later, on April 12, 1961, Russian Lt. Yuri Gagarin
became the first human to orbit Earth in Vostok 1. His flight lasted 108 minutes,
and Gagarin reached an altitude of 327 kilometres (about 202 miles).
It took a lot of effort from engineers, physicists and astronomers to launch the first artificial
object (that is, the first satellite) and the first man in orbit around the planet Earth.
But we, as humans, went beyond: we wanted to reach the Moon.
Landing a man on the moon and returning him safely to Earth was
John F. Kennedy's national goal, set in 1961. On July 20, 1969, astronaut Neil Armstrong took
“one giant leap for mankind”, as he stepped onto the moon.
Since then, lots of people started to care about aerospace. We launched the
first space stations and the Space Shuttle. Satellite communications expanded to carry
television programs, and people were able to pick up satellite signals on their home dish antennas.
Satellites discovered an ozone hole over Antarctica, pinpointed forest fires,
and gave us photographs of the nuclear power plant disaster at Chernobyl in 1986.
Astronomical satellites found new stars and gave us a new view of the centre of our galaxy.
It was in this rich and promising scenario that Space X was born.
If you want to know more about the history of SpaceX,
follow me in this video! Let's dive into it.
It all started with an idea of
a visionary man, called “Elon Musk”. I'm sure you've heard his name before,
but just in case you didn't here's a lovely photo of him smoking weed during Joe Rogan Podcast:
Musk (b.1971) is a South African-born entrepreneur with degrees in business and physics from the
University of Pennsylvania—and he’s launching rockets because he just kind of decided to.
That’s the short answer, and it’s not much different from the long answer.
Musk has no formal training in rocketry, but he does have an eye for new markets.
He made his initial fortune as a co-founder of PayPal and has since founded Tesla Motors
and SolarCity—a solar energy company. Elon's idea was to land a miniature
experimental greenhouse containing seed with dehydrated gel on Mars, to grow plants on
Martian Soil, “so this would be the furthest that life's ever travelled”, as he said.
But he soon realized that travel to Mars would be too much expensive without a
fundamental breakthrough in rocket technology. In the early 2000s when he saw the opening
NASA was created by retreating from the business of launching spacecraft to low earth orbit,
he jumped into that gap, founding Space Exploration Technologies Corporation—or
SpaceX—going into competition with other, generally more-established companies such
as Boeing and Virginia-based Orbital Sciences. It was the first private company to successfully
launch and return a spacecraft from Earth orbit and the first to launch a crewed
spacecraft and dock it with the International Space Station (ISS).
The company entered the arena of space industry with the Falcon 1 rocket,
a two-stage liquid-fueled craft designed to send small satellites into orbit.
The Falcon 1 was vastly cheaper to build and operate than its competitors.
Part of the rocket’s cost-effectiveness was made possible by the SpaceX-developed Merlin engine,
a cheaper alternative to those used by other companies. SpaceX also focused on making
reusable rockets (other launch vehicles are generally made for one-time use).
In March 2006 the company made its first Falcon 1 launch,
that unfortunately ended prematurely because of a fuel leak and fire.
But it wasn't too bad, I mean, by this time the company had already
earned millions of dollars in launch orders. SpaceX was acting just as a delivery guy!
In August of the same year, SpaceX was a winner of a NASA competition for funds
to build and demonstrate spacecraft that could potentially service the
ISS after the decommissioning of the space shuttle. Falcon 1 launches that failed to
attain Earth orbit followed in March 2007 and August 2008, but in September 2008
SpaceX became the first privately owned company to send a liquid-fueled rocket into orbit. Three
months later it won a NASA contract for servicing the ISS that was worth more than $1 billion.
In 2010 SpaceX first launched its Falcon 9, a bigger craft so named for its use of nine engines,
and the following year it broke ground on a launch site for the Falcon Heavy
In December 2010 the company reached another milestone,
becoming the first commercial company to release a spacecraft—the Dragon capsule—into
orbit and successfully return it to Earth. Dragon again made history on May 25, 2012,
when it became the first commercial spacecraft to dock with the ISS, to which it successfully
delivered cargo. In August that year, SpaceX announced that it had won a contract from NASA
to develop a successor to the space shuttle that would transport astronauts into space.
What was new in Falcon 9?
It was designed so that its first stage could be reused.
In 2015, a Falcon 9 first stage successfully returned to Earth near its launch site.
Can you imagine it? THEY RETURNED TO EARTH, near its launch site,
the first stage of a rocket! It was 2015. It was six years ago.
What happened next?
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After Falcon 9 launch success in 2015, SpaceX also began using drone ships for rocket stage landings.
Here is what it means:
As you can see, different stages of a rocket are returning to Earth in a safe landing.
This is an incredible accomplishment for Elon Musk and SpaceX because it finally embodied the
objective of the company: since its birth, they have always tried to make aerospace affordable.
And they did it, producing reusable rockets. What a man, what a company!
But now, ladies and gentlemen, fasten your seatbelts,
because we are going to tell you the story of the most exciting thing that SpaceX did.
SpaceX achieved a momentous feat on Tuesday, February 6,
2018, when successfully launching the company’s Falcon Heavy rocket on a high-stakes shakedown
mission – successfully boosting into orbit and later off into Deep Space a midnight-cherry Tesla
Roadster as a novelty-payload chosen for this flight by SpaceX founder and CEO Elon Musk.
The mission also carried out a science-fiction-like return of the
two outer Falcon Cores in a display of sub-orbital acrobatics – firing their engines simultaneously
for a rocket-powered U-turn back toward Cape Canaveral leading up to a near-simultaneous
touchdown of the two boosters after an eight-minute round trip to the edge of space.
This also made for some spectacular viewing for those present at Cape Canaveral – first, the
Earth-shaking rumble of the 27-engine Falcon Heavy followed only minutes later by the display of the
twin boosters descending under engine power and sending a pair of dual sonic booms over the Cape.
Was it just a marketing move? We will never know for sure, but Musk said it was
something made to inspire people all over the world, and attract them to aerospace.
At a certain point, and I would say, very soon, SpaceX was ready to fly a crew.
The first crewed flight of a Dragon capsule to the ISS launched on May 30, 2020, with
astronauts Doug Hurley and Robert Behnken. But what is the Dragon Spacecraft like?
Picture a 21st century Apollo spacecraft. After the troubled history of the space
shuttle—including the loss of two seven-person crews—SpaceX and most other rocket companies
have returned to the old model of the upright rocket with the crow perched on top of the stack.
The Dragon is configurable to seat up to seven people, but it can and usually will
carry fewer. The escape rockets, which are used to pull the ship away from the booster
in the event of a fire or possible explosion, are not mounted in a tower above the capsule,
as they were in the Apollo and Mercury days. Instead, they are built into its base, pushing
the capsule away, instead of pulling it. This helps the Dragon achieve one of its other goals:
reusability. The spacecraft and escape system are not simply thrown away after use
but could instead be cleaned up, checked out and configured for another flight.
Last but not least, the successor to the Flacon 9 and the Falcon Heavy
will be the Super Heavy-Starship system. This is the last step to do to get to Mars.
We dare to say that all of the work made by SpaceX during these years was just
to reach this goal: launching Starship to Mars. SpaceX planned to use the Starship for a flight
around the Moon carrying Japanese businessman Maezawa Yusaku and several artists in 2023
and to launch settlers to Mars in the mid-2020s, and we are super excited about that.
So prepare yourself, because by the end of the twenties you are probably going to attend one of
the most iconic events in space exploration history: Space X bringing humans to Mars.
Space X gave a huge boost to the Aerospace industry, and so many Companies decided to
bet on spaceflight. That's why, over time, Musk owned a lot of competitors.
We could mention Boeing, which is building its spacecraft to fly
crewed ISS missions along with Musk's Dragon, or maybe Orbital Sciences, the company that
shares the ISS cargo-run contract with Space X. Also, Virgin Galactic is a marginal player,
planning to sell only suborbital rides for vacationers with deep pockets:
normal people will have still some time to wait before they could afford a suborbital trip.
Before ending this video we would like to point out that, in about 20 years, SpaceX
revolutionized the space industry and technology:
we are proud to live in a new era for space exploration: the SpaceX Era.
"This video ends here! Thanks for watching everyone! Do you think SpaceX history to be an
inspiring one? Do you think we will send humans to Mars before 2030? Did you enjoy this video?
Let us know in the comment below! See you next time on the channel!