Musk once described himself as a "kind of crazy engineer."
Author | Zheng Xuan
Musk's engineer label, this time with national certification.
On the morning of February 10, the National Academy of Engineering (NAE) announced a new list of academicians, and Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk were officially elected as academicians of the National Academy of Engineering.
The National Academy of Engineering is the highest level of academic institution in the field of engineering science and technology in the United States, founded in December 1964. Elected to the National Academy of Engineering is one of the highest professional honors awarded to engineers.
According to the NAE website, Academy members recognize those who have made "outstanding contributions to engineering research, practice, or education, including, where appropriate, to the engineering literature," as well as "to pioneer new and developing technological fields, make significant advances in traditional engineering fields, or develop/implement innovative approaches to engineering education."
The inductees of the National Academy of Engineering, in addition to scientific researchers, founders of scientific and technological enterprises and technicians who have made outstanding achievements are also regulars on the list. Musk, who has continuously created Tesla, SpaceX and Neuralink, has long been the representative of the engineer spirit in the hearts of geeks. Compared with other founders and CEOs, Musk's selection can be said to be more deserved.
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Engineer Musk
As for why Musk was selected, NAE said that as the founder, CEO and chief engineer of SpaceX, Musk has made "breakthroughs in the design, engineering, manufacturing and operation of reusable launch vehicles and sustainable transportation and energy systems."
A total of 111 academicians and 22 foreign academicians were selected in this round. In addition to Musk, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella, Moderna co-founder and chairman Noubar Afeyan, and Apple's vice president of hardware engineering Kathleen Bergeron were also selected. Together with the newly elected academicians, the total number of academicians of the National Academy of Engineering in the United States reached 2388, and the number of international academicians reached 310.
Musk retweeted the official U.S. National Academy of Engineering tweet
With Tesla stock soaring in the past two years, Musk has become the world's richest man. But in his bones, Musk is still a full-fledged engineer.
Public information shows that Musk grew up in South Africa. At the age of 17, he moved to Canada to study at Queen's University. Two years later, he transferred to the University of Pennsylvania and received a bachelor's degree in economics and physics. In 1995, he moved to California and attended Stanford University, but he dropped out of school shortly after and decided to go into business.
Musk first came to China in 2014, and at the Singularity Convention at Geek Park, he said he was a "kind of crazy engineer." Offstage, Geek Park founder Zhang Peng asked him why he wanted to be the CEO of two companies? Musk replied, "I don't really want to be a CEO." What I really want is an engineer who can design and implement products on his own ideas."
On April 21, 2014, Musk was at Singularity · Talked to Zhang Peng, founder and CEO of Geek Park, at the Geek Park Innovators Summit
Today Musk's dream of an engineer is gradually becoming a reality, and the honor of a fellow of the American Academy of Engineering is just a small milestone in this story.
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SpaceX: Accolades and controversies
It is worth noting that although he is also the CEO of many technology companies, Musk was elected as a member of the American Academy of Engineering, but he is the "founder, CEO and chief engineer" of SpaceX.
SpaceX was founded in 2002 to reduce rocket launch costs and realize Musk's dream of Martian colonization. SpaceX's early $100 million came from Musk's cash-out from selling his PayPal. According to Hurun's 2021 Global Unicorn List, SpaceX's current valuation has exceeded $100 billion, making it the world's third-largest unicorn after ByteDance and Ant Group.
"Rocket recovery" and "StarLink" have been two of SpaceX's biggest keywords in recent years. The former has brought Musk a worldwide reputation, and the latter has brought trouble to SpaceX and Musk in addition to reputation.
Musk established SpaceX with the goal of achieving large-scale manned space transportation, and rocket recovery is a key technology to achieve this goal. Rocket manufacturing and launch costs are high, requiring hundreds of millions or even hundreds of millions of dollars each time, of which rocket manufacturing costs account for the majority of launch costs, while fuel costs only need hundreds of thousands of dollars. This means that if the rocket can be recovered and the launch can be repeated, the cost of launching the rocket will be greatly reduced.
SpaceX successfully implemented a recovery rocket at sea for the first time
In December 2015, SpaceX successfully launched the Falcon 9 rocket and successfully completed the first stage rocket recovery mission 10 minutes after the rocket lifted off, which is the first orbiter for humanity to achieve the recovery of the first stage rocket. In December 2020, SpaceX successfully launched Sirius XM's latest radio satellite with its seventh recovery of the Falcon 9 rocket, which also set a new record for the number of times its recyclable rocket was used.
By significantly reducing costs through the recovery of rocket technology, Musk's other plan has been implemented, that is, the "Starlink" program that has brought great controversy in recent times.
In January 2015, Musk announced plans for SpaceX's satellite Internet service. SpaceX plans to launch about 12,000 communications satellites into orbit and begin work in 2020. The project, named Starlink, offers low-cost Internet connectivity around the world.
The first Starlink satellite was launched into space in 2018, and SpaceX completed its 36th Starlink launch mission in January 2022, bringing the total number of Starlink satellites to more than 2,000. SpaceX has received permission from the Federal Communications Commission to launch a total of 12,000 Starlink satellites, and SpaceX has applied to the FCC to launch another 30,000.
According to media reports, nasa has sent a letter to the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) expressing concern about SpaceX's second-generation Starlink program. NASA wrote in the letter that the agency is concerned that as the number of satellites deployed by the Starlink program increases, the probability of collision events may increase significantly, which will have an impact on NASA's science and manned space missions.
NASA cites data that the total number of objects currently tracked in orbit around the Earth is 25,000 (including satellites and various types of space junk), and SpaceX's second-generation starlink program will more than double the number of tracked objects in orbit.
In fact, it is not only NASA that is plagued by the starlink, but also the spacecraft safety of the European Space Agency and the Chinese Space Agency.
In September 2019, the ESA Fengshen weather satellite collided with SpaceX's Starlink 44 satellite. Based on earlier communication records, ESA determined that the U.S. satellite would not change orbit, so it issued an order to make the "Fengshen" satellite ignite and change orbit three times, avoiding the accident.
At the end of 2021, the news that the Chinese space station twice urgently avoided touching the "Starlink" satellite attracted attention. According to documents submitted by China to the United Nations, the Starlink satellite launched by SpaceX in 2021 was close to the Chinese space station twice. The first occurred on July 1 and the second on October 21, when the Chinese space station assembly twice implemented emergency collision avoidance for safety reasons.
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