New Delhi.
The whole world knows about Tesla, the auto company of the world’s richest man, Elon Musk. It is the most valuable auto company in the world. Its value is about $1.4 trillion, which is almost half of the global auto industry. But Musk’s another company SpaceX has become the world’s most valuable startup company. Its value has reached $350 billion. Musk has dreamed of sending humans to Mars and with this mission he founded SpaceX in 2002. Musk wants to become the Apple of rocket business and it has been successful in this to a great extent.
This company has many records in its name and has emerged as a big name in the space industry. American space agency NASA is today using SpaceX rockets to send its astronauts to the International Space Station. But the journey for this was not easy. The company faced several failures one after the other. At one time Musk had invested all his savings in it. He also tried to buy rockets from Russia but things did not work out. Musk had lost all his money and he also had to sell his car. But Musk never gave up.
Had to endure humiliation in Russia
American business columnist and author Ashley Vance has mentioned an incident related to SpaceX in his book ‘Elon Musk: How the Billionaire CEO of SpaceX and Tesla is Shaping Our Future’. This was at a time when SpaceX had not been formed. Musk wanted to spend two to three million dollars on the rocket launch. But experts said that this is not possible. Musk planned to go to Russia to find out how much rocket launches cost. He wanted to buy ICBM from Russia and use it as his launch vehicle. Same type of technology is used in rockets and missiles.
For this work, Musk took the help of a person named Jim Cantrell. Cantrell was accused of espionage and was placed under house arrest in Russia in 1996. For this reason he did not want to go to Russia but Musk convinced him. In October 2001, Musk, Cantrell, and Musk’s college friend Adio Ressi arrived in Moscow. Musk and his team spoke to the Russians three times. But things were not working out. A Russian chief designer spit on Cantrell and Musk during a meeting. ‘A Russian chief designer spit on me and Alan because he thought we were rubbish,’ says Cantrell.
how amazing you did it
Actually, Musk had kept 20 million dollars for the rocket. They believed that three ICBMs could be purchased with this. In a meeting, Musk asked the Russians what the cost of an ICBM would be, and the answer they got was $8 million. Musk said that at least two will arrive in that time. The Russians flatly refused to deliver the missile at this price. Musk felt that the Russians were not serious about this deal or wanted to extort as much money as possible from him. This is from February 2002. Musk had gone to Russia with big dreams but returned empty handed. He was disappointed but did not give up.
After this Musk decided to make the rocket himself. Musk founded SpaceX in June 2002. But it took the company six years to successfully fly its rocket. SpaceX came into limelight in 2008 when its rocket launched a satellite into orbit. It was the first private company in the world to achieve such a feat. In 2010, its rocket placed a payload in orbit and then returned safely to Earth. The reason for SpaceX’s success is that it makes 80% of the equipment used in the rocket itself. This helps the company to reduce costs.
