We all know Elon Musk, right? You may know him as the inventor of PayPal, SpaceX, or Tesla Motors. In whatever way you know of him, are you aware that he and his team have successfully achieved a space docking onto the International Space Station? If you didn’t know, then let me just say, you are not the only one.

Elon Musk was born in South Africa, son of Maye and Erolle Musk. At a near age of ten, Musk took extreme interest in computers and engineering. By the young age of twelve, Elon had manifested and sold his first program, a software called Blastar. At seventeen, Musk left Africa to pursue an education at Queen’s University in Canada, later moving to the US to finish his education at University of Pennsylvania. He graduated in 1992 with an undergraduate degree in economics and later got his bachelors in physical science. From there his career could only advance. He developed his first company in 1995 and called it Zip2 Corporation, which resulted in millions of dollars on possible stock options. Then he developed PayPal, a company we still use today, using the money from his Zip2 Corporation. He later sold it but not without owning eleven percent of the stock. That brings us to his third and most recent company, SpaceX. SpaceX was brought to life in 2002 and has only advanced from there. Apart from its own successes, NASA awarded SpaceX with a contract for cargo transport to the International Space Station.

Some say that SpaceX will soon be moving to completely replacing the NASA space shuttles. One of SpaceX’s first accomplishments was the Falcon 9 rockets. The company truly shone when they launched their first Falcon 9 unmanned rocket. This rocket delivered nearly a thousand pounds of supplies to the International Space Station. This act represented the first time an privately owned company delivered to the ISS. This success did not come without later failure. In November 2017, the test launch of the newest Belin Block 5 engine went terribly wrong. Even though the test ended in an explosion, SpaceX reported that no one was injured and that it wouldn’t hinder any further progress with future rockets or shuttles. Which was an extremely true statement, as the company has completed many more launches and advancements. Including a variety of rockets and space satellites.

As the company makes further advancements into the excitements of space and the opportunities it holds. Would it be crazy to say that space exploration will become a regular occurrence for normal day to day people? Only the future will tell what things Elon Musk has in store next.

References:
https://www.biography.com/business-figure/elon-musk