When Space Exploration Technologies’ (SpaceX) Dragon capsule landed in the Pacific Ocean on May 31, 2012, it marked a great feat for Elon Musk and his company the SpaceX.
Successful missions to the International Space Station (ISS) have only been achieved by four other nations: USA, Japan, Russia and the European Space Agency.
Formed after an agreement between National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) and the Russian Space Agency (RSA), the ISS is a research facility, laboratory, observatory and factory based in space. It also provides transportation, maintenance, and acts as a staging base for possible future missions of space exploration.
It hasn’t always been smooth sailing for Elon Musk given that SpaceX nearly went bankrupt when the “Falcon 1” (a small, partially reusable rocket capable of placing several hundred kilograms into low earth orbit) had three failed missions to space – due to various technical reasons. Only on the fourth attempt did it make it into orbit.
After its first flight was put forward for several months in 2010, the “Falcon 9” (medium-lift which can deliver up to 10,450 kilograms to orbit) finally made two flights into orbit 4 June 2010 and 8 December 2010.
When “Dragon,” human rated commercial spacecraft able to carry up to seven astronauts into orbit and beyond, made history by becoming the first privately owned commercial spacecraft to successfully attach to the ISS, Elon’s excitement was tangible as he said on Twitter – “Dragon captured by the International Space Station! Just awesome …”
Elon Musk is no stranger to public success and innovation. Born in Pretoria, South Africa, in 1971, he matriculated at Pretoria Boys High School in the 1980’s, and later graduated with a degree in Economics from Wharton, and a Physics degree from the University of Pennsylvania.
Musk afterwards left Stanford University to start his first business project – Zip2 – which was a business to build websites for media companies, he later sold this to Compaq in 1999.
He then went on to start X.com, a prelude to a global online payments system PayPal, which he later sold to eBay for $170 Million.
Musk afterwards pursued his three main interests: SpaceX,Tesla (creator of the world’s first electric sports car) and SolarCity (a company that designs and installs solar energy systems).
In 2010, Jon Favreau (Director of the Iron Man movies) wrote about how – after much insistence from Robert Downey Jr. (he plays the lead role of Tony Stark, Iron Man) that he speak with Elon Musk – Elon inspired the lead character role in the Iron Man movies and he also earned himself a cameo role in Iron Man 2. As Favreau puts it “Elon is a paragon of enthusiasm, good humor and curiosity — a Renaissance man in an era that needs them.”
With real life heroes and technology success stories from Africa like Elon Musk and others like him – Mark Shuttleworth (South African founder of Thawte, later sold to VeriSign. A space tourist), and Mo Ibrahim (Sudanese telecom Billionaire and founder of CelTel) – African Technology Startup entrepreneurs know that it is possible to be the next success story out of Africa.
