Ambitious people are never satisfied with the advantages in front of them, and constantly surpassing is the background of their character.
Musk's ambition is to land on Mars first and use this as a springboard to build an interstellar civilization, which is also the source of his continuous progress.
Falcon 1
Falcon 1 is just an experiment, just to test whether SpaceX can succeed in the rocket and gain a foothold as soon as possible. Its success won SpaceX more than 10 contracts, and then SpaceX quickly entered the fast lane of development, and the momentum was unstoppable.
As launch orders grew, Musk was acutely aware that he had to move into a higher-end market in order to thrive.
Falcon 9
The success of Falcon 9 provides SpaceX with a strong competitiveness to compete with the world's space giants, which is much more powerful than Falcon 1. How much more powerful? The Falcon 1 has a load of only about 1 ton and only one engine. The Falcon 9 has a payload of 23 tons, a height of 70 meters, and nine engines. In contrast, Falcon 1 is like a toy.
Falcon rocket comparison chart
From 2010 to 2015, Falcon 9 made 19 launches, basically a frequency of 4 times a year, and Musk can't wait to succeed, go into space, and land on Mars.
Although the rocket launch has made a lot of progress compared with the past, it still cannot enter space at the optimal cost, which is not conducive to large-scale colonization of Mars.
Musk used his ingenuity again to decide to develop spacecraft and rocket recovery technology to completely solve the problem of expensive landing on Mars.
Dragon spaceships, recoverable rockets, Falcon Heavy, starships and more continue to appear. These spacecraft that refresh history one after another have broken the space problem and created more convenient conditions for human beings to go to space. Musk is getting closer and closer to his Martian dream.
Dragon spaceship
The Dragon spacecraft was originally designed to land on Mars.
Dragon spaceship
The first generation of cargo Dragon spacecraft successfully docked with the International Space Station in March 2013, this generation of Dragon spacecraft has been used for a total of ten years, 22 launches, 21 successes, 1 failure, a success rate of 95%, the reliability of performance is shocking. The second-generation Dragon spacecraft is mainly a manned spacecraft, which successfully sent more than a dozen astronauts to the International Space Station with Falcon 9 rockets in 2020, 2021 and 2022. The Dragon spacecraft has become the world's major manned spacecraft, and its simplified version is the cargo Dragon spacecraft.
Rocket recovery technology
During the development of the Dragon spacecraft, SpaceX's rocket recovery technology also advanced by leaps and bounds.
The Falcon 9 first stage rocket landed at the same time for recovery
In December 2015, the Falcon 9 rocket successfully recovered the first stage after launch, and then developed the technology that can recover the rocket on the floating platform, creating a precedent for human rocket launch recovery and reuse.
Falcon Heavy (FH)
On the basis of Falcon 9, SpaceX has developed the Falcon Heavy rocket (FH), which has a low-Earth orbit carrying capacity of 63.8 tons and a geosynchronous orbit carrying capacity of 26.7 tons, which is the largest launch vehicle in service.
Falcon heavy
In 2018, Musk put his hands in his pockets and fired the Falcon Heavy for the first time, sending a red Tesla Roadster sports car into space and successfully recovering 2 booster rockets. "Falcon Heavy" was also selected as one of the top ten tech phrases of the year.
Starlink
At the same time as the success of the Falcon Heavy, the "Starlink Project", a by-product of the rocket launch, was also implemented.
Starlink chart
SpaceX plans to launch 42,000 satellites into space to form a near-Earth satellite communication network, solving the problem that communication cannot be achieved in areas without communication base stations. In the past, satellite launch was a high-end problem, which turned Musk into a child's toy level, and launching dozens of satellites with a rocket has also become SpaceX's specialty, leaving other competitors far behind. So far, SpaceX has put more than 4,000 satellites into orbit and built a global communications network, accounting for half of the world's satellites.
Falcon rocket, Dragon spacecraft, Starlink, Sun City, Tesla, brain-computer interface, humanoid robot, every new product is born, can make waves around the world. One wonders why Musk has been able to come up with so many creative new technologies?
Mars Idea
In fact, if you understand Musk's dreams when he was young, it will suddenly be enlightened.
If you don't understand, please flip through my public account article.
Musk had an idea of a Martian oasis in his brain for a long time, and now he is realizing it little by little. He mainly solved the problem of landing on Mars and building Martian cities, and in the process, new technologies and products were naturally created.
To and from Mars to Earth, it is necessary to use rockets to transport people and supplies; To land on Mars or land on Earth, the Dragon spacecraft is indispensable; Mars communication is a problem, the establishment of a large number of base stations is time-consuming, costly, and the effect is not obvious, and the Starlink satellite communication network can be established directly in near-Mars orbit to solve the communication problem; Mars' traditional energy is insufficient, but solar power is absolutely feasible, spreading solar panels on Mars can not only reduce the hot temperature, but also convert into electricity for heating at night and charging cars; Travel on Mars also needs cars, but not fuel vehicles, electric vehicles, Tesla is indispensable; The harsh living environment on Mars cannot often be directly labored by humans, but uses the human brain to establish a connection with robots, and uses robots to replace humans for outdoor operations.
This genius idea, except for science fiction, no one dares to think so, let alone anyone can do it.
Who else but Musk?
Musk and Mars
Many times, it is seriously suspected that Musk is actually a Martian, not an earthling, he was mistakenly born on Earth, so he was born to return to Mars at all costs.
I wonder if you think the same way?
Musk is completing his preparations for landing on Mars step by step, but to build a Martian City, a lot of materials need to be transported from Earth, so Musk is constantly carrying out starship launch experiments. This is the final step to leave Earth for Mars, and once the starship is successful, Musk's landing on Mars will be without suspense.
Comparison chart of the world's main rockets
Next, we want to talk about starships, so stay tuned!
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