For the last Winning Science of 2014, we decided to start off by going back to one of our favorite tech geeks, Elon Musk. Sixteen months ago Musk announced a radical plan for a Hyperloop, a high speed transportation system that could run from LA to San Fransisco in just over 30 minutes. Musk’s paper was mostly theoritical, discussing likely means of accomplishing the idea without delving into the specifics. Since then, a company, Hyperloop Transportation Technologies, has brought in 100 engineers to start working out those details. While they are still in the early design stages, the teams have already evaluated Musk’s plan and determined that it is likely feasible in the time frame and for the amount of money that Musk projected. Additionally, they have been working on improving Musk’s original designs. The team has also made up a potential service map that they feel would provide the best possible service.
Tag Archives: Elon Musk
Geeks You Should Know: Elon Musk
This month’s Geek You Should Know is billionaire entrepreneur and engineer Elon Musk. Born in South Africa, he began his career by selling computer code for a video game at age twelve. By age seventeen he had moved to Canada to pursue a college degree, eventually graduating from the University of Pennsylvania with a degree in economics and physics. During the Dot Com boom in the mid 1990’s, he founded Zip2, which was later bought for just over $300 million—not bad for a guy in his 20’s. For most people, these accomplishments would be enough, but that same year Musk co-founded X.com, which we all know now as PayPal. Three years later Musk sold PayPal to Ebay, and moved on to even bigger projects. Lately he has been making waves with both SpaceX and Tesla Motors.
Why We Should Care
This guy is basically Tony Stark without (at least as far as we know) the Iron Man suit. While he has been fortunate to get involved in tech companies at just the right time, Elon Musk has also made a startling habit of taking on industries dominated by monolithic companies and revolutionizing the business right in front of them. Before PayPal, banks and credit card companies were the only way to make payments on the internet. Musk challenged that and forced the industry to play by his rules. Many of the services that have come about in online banking since 1998 are directly or indirectly a response to PayPal.
Not only is PayPal listed with all the big name credit card companies, but their name is the biggest. That’s impressive.
Musk’s current projects are taking on two industries at once: automotive and aerospace. Currently, wannabe astronauts have to spend years training, studying, hoping and praying that they can get accepted into NASA and get to be part of a mission. If Musk has his way—and there is every indication that he will—NASA’s monopoly on space travel will quickly become non-existent. SpaceX has recently announced its desire to construct a permanent space port in southern Texas where they can launch commercial space flights.
As for the auto industry, Musk’s Tesla Motors has been making huge strides in the electric car market. Although Tesla has had a few high profile incidents lately, their cars are miles ahead of the competition. With Musk’s vision leading the company, Tesla is not only looking at the cars themselves, but also at the infrastructure required to make these cars viable while still maintaining their green designs.
Tesla has also been involved in some legal battles recently due to its business model. Most states have laws requiring that cars be sold from dealers who buy from the manufacturer. Tesla would like to remove the middle man, and sell the cars directly to the general public. This fight has been particularly rough in Texas, which has deeply entrenched laws. I’m pretty confident that Tesla will win in the end, though it may get messy before it’s all done.
The world needs more people like Elon Musk. Men and women like him are the kinds that drive industries to do new and different things and that’s why Elon Musk is a Geek You Should Know.
Filed under Andrew Hales, Geek Life, Geeks You Should Know
Winning Science August 7, 2013
Today we start off something pure and wholesome…Dino Sex! We all know dinosaurs come from eggs (a select few from actual science, the rest of us from watching Jurassic Park) yet scientists don’t know how dinosaur sex worked. They have several theories, however there is unfortunately no fossil record to give us some insight into this necessary act. And of course some dinosaurs, like the stegosaurs, appear to have a tougher time than other.
Maybe he just wants a hand job.
Despite not being able to find any evidence of dino sex in the fossils, scientist have found a pair of preserved turtles that were bumping uglies.
Mars One is looking for applicants for a one way mission to Mars. There plan is to send groups of 4 colonists, 2 men and 2 women, to set up permanent residence on the red planet. 78,000 people, mostly men, have applied for the program so far. I wonder how many of them are just trying to get away from someone or something that’s annoying them.
While this is a huge risk, given the basic collapse of NASA’s manned space program, we need this kind of pioneer attitude from private companies and citizens if we’re going to move beyond our own world. There is very little difference between this endvour and Europeans coming to North America 600 years ago.
Paypal founder Elon Musk is preparing to announce plans for a high speed train running from LA to San Francisco. The idea of high speed rail is nothing new, but what is making this announcement so interesting is that Mr. Musk is claiming he can do it for a tenth of what the government say it can do it for. I’d love to see him prove Uncle Sam wrong, and to have a successful high speed rail line running in the US as a model for future rail lines.
I am a little skeptical as most rail lines in the world don’t operate at a profit, but Elon Musk has proven he can turn various industries on their heads, so he is one of the few people I think has a chance to make this feasible.
Filed under Winning Science
Therefore I Geek 