Elon Musk buys large stake in Twitter, sending stock soaring

NEW YORK - Elon Musk has taken a major stake in Twitter, regulatory filings showed Monday, sending the social media network's stock soaring and igniting speculation he could seek an active role in its operations.

Musk, the world's richest man and CEO of electric vehicle company Tesla, is a frequent Twitter user who often posts controversial messages and announcements, and has long been critical of social media companies.

In one recent post he questioned Twitter's adherence to free speech and hinted at launching his own platform. 

According to a document filed with the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), the South African-born billionaire acquired nearly 73.5 million Twitter shares -- a 9.2 percent stake in the company.

Based on Friday's closing price of the company's stock, his investment amounts to nearly $2.9 billion.

Investors responded quickly. At 7.15 am in New York (1115 GMT) Twitter's stock was trading at about $49, up by around 26 percent.

"We would expect this passive stake as just the start of broader conversations with the Twitter board/management that could ultimately lead to an active stake and a potential more aggressive ownership role of Twitter," analysts Daniel Ives and John Katsingris of Wedbush wrote in a note.

Musk launched a poll on Twitter on March 25, saying "free speech is essential to a functioning democracy. Do you believe Twitter rigorously adheres to this principle?" 

More than two million people voted in the poll, with over 70 percent saying "no."

"Given that Twitter serves as the de facto public town square, failing to adhere to free speech principles fundamentally undermines democracy. What should be done?" he continued the next day.

"Is a new platform needed?"

"Just buy twitter," was one of the first responses from tens of thousands of users.

MUSK, TWITTER AND CONTROVERSY

Musk has wielded Twitter polls to conduct business before: in November last year, he offloaded $5 billion in Tesla shares days after asking fellow social media users if he should sell 10 percent of his stake.

In the summer of 2018 Musk published a tweet where he claimed that he had the appropriate funding to take Tesla private, without providing proof.

The tweet caused a brief spike in Tesla's share price but the SEC said the statements on Twitter were "false and misleading."

The mogul then agreed that any tweets capable of moving Tesla's share price would be screened by lawyers, as part of a deal that saw him pay $20 million to settle a fraud case brought by the SEC.

Then in early March, Musk asked a New York judge to overturn the agreement with the stock market watchdog on his tweets. 

His lawyer said the dispute with the SEC was "yet another attempt to harass Tesla and silence Mr Musk."

Musk has also used Twitter to court controversy away from the business world: in March he challenged Russian President Vladimir Putin to a fight, with the fate of Ukraine at stake; and in February he drew condemnation for a tweet comparing Canadian leader Justin Trudeau to Adolf Hitler.

Agence France-Presse

Elon Musk's SpaceX bans Zoom over privacy concerns - memo

NEW YORK, United States - Elon Musk's rocket company SpaceX has banned its employees from using video conferencing app Zoom, citing "significant privacy and security concerns," according to a memo seen by Reuters, days after US law enforcement warned users about the security of the popular app.

Use of Zoom and other digital communications has soared as many Americans have been ordered to stay home to slow the spread of coronavirus.

SpaceX's ban on Zoom Video Communications Inc illustrates the mounting challenges facing aerospace manufacturers as they develop technology deemed vital to national security while also trying to keep employees safe from the fast-spreading respiratory illness.

In an email dated March 28, SpaceX told employees that all access to Zoom had been disabled with immediate effect.

"We understand that many of us were using this tool for conferences and meeting support," SpaceX said in the message. "Please use email, text or phone as alternate means of communication."

Two people familiar with the matter confirmed the contents of the mail.

A representative for SpaceX, which has more than 6,000 employees, did not respond to a request for comment. Chief Executive Musk also heads electric car maker Tesla Inc.

NASA, one of SpaceX's biggest customers, also prohibits its employees from using Zoom, said Stephanie Schierholz, a spokeswoman for the US space agency.

The FBI’s Boston office on Monday issued a warning about Zoom, telling users not to make meetings on the site public or share links widely after it received two reports of unidentified individuals invading school sessions, a phenomenon known as "zoombombing."

Investigative news site The Intercept on Tuesday reported that Zoom video is not end-to-end encrypted between meeting participants, and that the company could view sessions.

Zoom did not immediately respond to requests for comment on SpaceX’s decision, but it has been advising users to use all the privacy functions on its platform.

As a defense contractor, California-based SpaceX has been classified as an essential business, allowing it to stay open through shutdowns that are in effect in California and Texas, the development and testing hub for its Starship rocket that could be used to get to the moon and Mars and send national security satellites to space. 

Reuters

Stellar view? Space hotels race to offer tourists a room in the sky

TBILISI, Georgia - Tired of your ordinary earthly vacations? Some day soon you might be able to board a rocket and get a room with a view - of the whole planet - from a hotel in space.

At least, that is the sales pitch of several companies racing to become the first to host guests in orbit on purpose-built space stations.

"It sounds kind of crazy to us today because it is not a reality yet," said Frank Bunger, founder of US aerospace firm Orion Span, one of the companies vying to take travelers out of this world.

"But that's the nature of these things, it sounds crazy until it is normal."

US multimillionaire Dennis Tito became the world's first paying space tourist in 2001, traveling to the International Space Station (ISS) aboard a Russian Soyuz rocket for a reported $20 million. A few others have followed.

Since then, companies like Boeing, SpaceX and Blue Origin have been working on ways to bring the stars into reach for more people - opening up a new business frontier for would-be space hoteliers.

US space agency NASA announced in June that it plans to allow two private citizens a year to stay at the ISS at a cost of about $35,000 per night for up to a month. The first mission could be as early as 2020.

But the growing movement has raised questions about the adequacy of current space laws, which mainly deal with exploration and keeping space free of weapons, not hotels and holidaymakers.

"It is difficult now to want to do things in space and get a clear answer from (space law)," said Christopher Johnson, a space law adviser at the Secure World Foundation, a space advocacy group.

"For something as advanced as hotels in space there is no clear guidance."

ORBITAL HOLIDAY

Orion Span plans to host the first guests on its Aurora Station - a capsule-shaped spacecraft roughly the size of a private jet - by 2024, said Bunger.

Accompanied by a crew member, up to five travelers at a time would fly up to the station for a 12-day stay costing at least $9.5 million per head, he said.

In orbit, guests would take part in scientific experiments, enjoy some 16 sunrises and sunsets a day and play table tennis in zero gravity, he said, adding about 30 people had already put down a $80,000 deposit to save a seat.

"We haven't seen this kind of excitement about space since the Apollo era," Bunger told the Thomson Reuters Foundation by phone.

Californian company the Gateway Foundation is hoping to build a massive space station able to sleep more than 400 people - including tourists, researchers, doctors and housekeepers.

Solar-powered and shaped like a wheel, the station would spin around its core to create artificial gravity on its perimeter, equal to about one-sixth of that on earth, said its architect Tim Alatorre.

"The problem is that you can only spin so fast before you start feeling sick," he said. "We could easily create earth gravity on the station by spinning it faster but you wouldn't be very comfortable."

The group aims to complete the station, named after Wernher von Braun, the former Nazi rocket scientist who later worked on the US Apollo program, by 2028.

Without disclosing how much a space holiday would cost, Alatorre said the goal was to make the station "accessible to the everyday person".

"So somebody can save up and go on a vacation to the United States or they can save up and go on a vacation to space," he said.

Yet that could take time to become a reality, said Lucy Berthoud, a space engineering professor at Britain's University of Bristol.

"The launch cost is the bottleneck for anyone who is doing this kind of enterprise," she said.

For example, NASA is expected to pay more than $50 million per seat to launch astronauts into space with Boeing and SpaceX rockets.

"It will take an increase in competition between launchers and a jump in technology to significantly lower costs," said Berthoud.

In recent years, several companies - including Spain's Galactic Suite and Russia's Orbital Technologies - have failed to live up to their pledges to host guests on orbiting hotels by now.

LEGAL HURDLES

The law is another hurdle for space hotels to lift off.

The rush of speculation in space has revealed gaps in international laws and treaties governing its use and sparked calls for greater oversight.

Life far from earth is mainly regulated by the 1967 Outer Space Treaty, which bans countries from claiming space and celestial bodies for themselves but allows for their use for peaceful purposes - opening the door to business exploitation.

But firms would need authorization from a state, normally the one where they are incorporated, to launch a hotel in space, said Tanja Masson-Zwaan, space law professor at Leiden University in the Netherlands.

Authorizing governments would also have to continuously supervise each space station's activities, she said.

And all states involved in the creation and launch of a space station are liable in perpetuity for any damage the station might cause - if it were to crash into a satellite, for example.

That responsibility could make governments wary of supporting such ventures in the first place, said Masson-Zwaan.

"I don't think there will be many states that will accept to authorize and supervise this kind of activity as long as it is not super-safe," she said.

The regulations that do exist are outdated and problematic to potential space hoteliers, noted Bunger of Orion Span, pointing to the Aurora Station project as an example.

Because the station will have some thrust capability to help it stay in orbit, it falls under a 40-year-old US set of rules on defense goods conceived mainly to prevent sensitive arms technology being sold to countries deemed to be a risk, he said.

Those rules have requirements on transparency and disclosure that have more to do with ballistic missiles than space holidays, Bunger said.

"Clearly this is not a weapon," he said of the station.

"There is not one government in the world that has caught up to the reality that tourists are trying to go into space," he said.

source: news.abs-cbn.com

Virgin Galactic becomes first space tourism company to land on Wall Street

NEW YORK -- Virgin Galactic landed on Wall Street Monday, debuting its listing on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) in a first for a space tourism company.

Founder Richard Branson appeared on the floor of the NYSE to ring a bell marking the beginning of trading, as fireworks jetted behind him.

"We have pioneered several space milestones, including sending our chief astronaut trainer as the first passenger to space on a commercial spaceship," Virgin Galactic said on Twitter.

"Today, we tick off another first -- now anyone can invest in the future of space."

The company, which will trade under the initials SPCE, ended down 0.34 percent at $11.75, with a valuation of $969 million.

Virgin Galactic joined the NYSE after merging with Social Capital Hedosophia, which was already listed. This allowed it to skip the formal IPO process and bring in $450 million.

Founded in 2004, Virgin Galactic has spent years developing its space program, and after a fatal accident in 2014, has twice crossed the barrier into the final frontier.

The company plans to offer weightless flights to six passengers at a time, at $250,000 (225,750 euros) a ticket for the first customers from the Summer of 2020, though it has yet to begin commercial launches. 

The client-astronauts will be able to float around the ship's cabin and look out of portholes to see the curvature of the Earth, all while surrounded by the blackness of space. 

More than 600 people have already signed up for the journey.

Branson is joined in the new space race by Blue Origin, founded by Amazon chief Jeff Bezos, which wants to offer clients a few minutes of weightlessness aboard a small rocket that takes off vertically.

Tesla's Elon Musk has founded SpaceX, with an eye on long-range space travel.

source: news.abs-cbn.com

SpaceX blasts off powerful GPS satellite for US military

TAMPA, Florida -- A SpaceX rocket on Sunday blasted off a powerful GPS satellite for the US Air Force, marking its 21st and final launch for the year.

A SpaceX mission control operator counted down to liftoff as the white Falcon 9 rocket took off under sunny, blue skies at 8:51 a.m. from Cape Canaveral, Florida.

The launch sent the Global Positioning System III space vehicle (SV) satellite into space to join the Air Force's constellation of 31 operational GPS satellites.

It promises "three times better accuracy" and an extended 15-year operational life, said a SpaceX statement.

Billions of people worldwide depend on GPS to support financial, transportation, and agricultural infrastructure.

SpaceX said the rocket was a "rare, expendable" version of the Falcon 9 since it would not attempt to re-land the booster after launch, needing to reserve all the rocket fuel to propel the satellite to its distant orbit.

source: news.abs-cbn.com

Japanese billionaire businessman is SpaceX's first Moon tourist

HAWTHORNE, United States - A Japanese billionaire and online fashion tycoon, Yusaku Maezawa, will be the first man to fly on a monster SpaceX rocket around the Moon as early as 2023, and he plans to bring 6 to 8 artists along.

Maezawa, 42, will be the first lunar traveler since the last US Apollo mission in 1972. He paid an unspecified amount of money for the privilege.

"Ever since I was a kid, I have loved the Moon," Maezawa said at SpaceX headquarters and rocket factory in Hawthorne, California, in the middle of metropolitan Los Angeles, late Monday.

"This is my lifelong dream."

Maezawa is chief executive of Japan's largest online fashion mall, and is the 18th richest person in Japan with a fortune of $3 billion, according to the business magazine Forbes.

Maezawa's other hobby is amassing valuable works of modern art and last year, he announced the acquisition of a Jean-Michel Basquiat masterpiece worth $110.5 million.

His love of art led him to decide to invite artists to come along for the trip, he said.

"I would like to invite six to eight artists from around the world to join me on this mission to the Moon," Maezawa said.

"They will be asked to create something after they return to Earth. These masterpieces will inspire the dreamer within all of us."

Until now, Americans are the only ones who have left Earth's orbit. A total of 24 NASA astronauts -- all white men -- voyaged to the Moon during the Apollo era of the 1960s and '70s. Twelve walked on the lunar surface.

The first space tourist was Dennis Tito, an American businessman who in 2001 paid some $20 million to fly on a Russian spaceship to the International Space Station.

FREE FOR ARTISTS

SpaceX CEO Elon Musk described Maezawa as the "bravest" and "best adventurer."

"He stepped forward," Musk added. "We are honored that he chose us."

Musk said he would not reveal the price Maezawa paid for the Moon trip, but said it would be "free for the artists."

"This is dangerous, to be clear. This is no walk in the park," Musk cautioned.

"When you are pushing the frontier, it is not a sure thing. There is a chance something could go wrong."

The ride will take place aboard a Big Falcon Rocket (BFR), which may not be ready for human flight for five years at least, Musk said.

The BFR was first announced in 2016, and was touted as the most powerful rocket in history, even more potent than the Saturn V Moon rocket that launched the Apollo missions five decades ago.

Last year, Musk said the BFR's admittedly "ambitious" goal was to make a test flight to Mars in 2022, followed by a crewed flight to the Red Planet in 2024.

'MULTI-PLANETARY SPECIES'

This isn't the first time Musk has vowed to send tourists around the Moon. Last year, he said two paying tourists would circle the Moon in 2018, but those plans that did not materialize.

Musk showed off designs of the 118-meter (129 yards) long BFR, which will consist of a first stage with engines and fuel systems, and a second stage with the spacecraft where the passengers will ride.

Like SpaceX's existing rockets, the Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy, the first stage can detach from the rest of the rocket and return to Earth for an upright landing.

The spacecraft will continue on toward the Moon, powered by its own engines.

The BFR spacecraft's shape is reminiscent of the space shuttle, the bus-like US spaceships that carried astronauts to space 135 times from 1981 to 2011.

Musk has said he wants the BFR's vessel to be able to hold around 100 people, and that the launch system could one day be used to colonize the Moon and Mars in order to make humans a "multi-planetary" species.

Whatever the details, SpaceX is touting an experience considerably more ambitious than space tourism plans under development by other private companies.

Virgin Galactic, founded by British tycoon Richard Branson, and billionaire Amazon founder Jeff Bezos's rocket company Blue Origin, are working on trips to the edge of space that could offer tourists a chance at weightlessness for 10 minutes or so.

Virgin's trip will cost about $250,000. Blue Origin's price has not been revealed.

Russian and Chinese companies are also working on space tourism plans.

HUMAN FLIGHT TO SPACE

Musk, who is also the CEO of Tesla Motors, has drawn attention in recent months over his erratic behavior.

He has alleged that a cave diver in Thailand who helped rescue stranded boys was a "pedo," smoked what appeared to be marijuana on a comedian's podcast, spooked Tesla investors with comments about the future of the electric car maker, and admitted to exhaustion and use of the sleeping pill Ambien.

But so far this year, his space firm has also kept up a schedule outpaced only by the Chinese government, making 15 launches with its Falcon 9 rocket.

Next year, SpaceX -- which has received billions in NASA funding to ferry supplies to the ISS and build a crew vehicle -- hopes to become the first private company to send astronauts to the space station.

source: news.abs-cbn.com

Musk deletes Facebook pages of Tesla, SpaceX after challenged on Twitter

Verified Facebook pages of Elon Musk's rocket company SpaceX and electric carmaker Tesla Inc disappeared on Friday, minutes after the Silicon Valley billionaire promised on Twitter to take down the pages when challenged by users.

"Delete SpaceX page on Facebook if you're the man?" a user tweeted to Tesla Chief Executive Musk. His response: "I didn't realize there was one. Will do."

Facebook pages of SpaceX and Tesla, which had millions of followers, are no longer accessible.

Musk had begun the exchange by responding to a tweet from WhatsApp co-founder Brian Acton on the #deletefacebook tag.

The hashtag gained prominence after the world's largest social network upset users by mishandling data, which ended up in the hands of Cambridge Analytica - a political consultancy that worked on U.S. President Donald Trump's 2016 election campaign.

"What's Facebook?" Musk tweeted.

Many users also urged the billionaire to delete the profiles of his companies on Facebook's photo-sharing app Instagram.

"Instagram's probably ok ... so long as it stays fairly independent," Musk responded.

"I don't use FB & never have, so don't think I'm some kind of martyr or my companies are taking a huge blow. Also, we don’t advertise or pay for endorsements, so ... don't care."

Musk has had run-ins with Facebook Inc founder Mark Zuckerberg in the past.

Last year, a war of words broke out between Musk and Zuckerberg over whether robots will become smart enough to kill their human creators.

When Zuckerberg was asked about Musk's views on the dangers of robots, he chided "naysayers" whose "doomsday scenarios" were "irresponsible."

In response, Musk tweeted: "His understanding of the subject is limited." (Reporting by Supantha Mukherjee and Munsif Vengattil in Bengaluru Editing by Saumyadeb Chakrabarty)

source: news.abs-cbn.com

SpaceX's Falcon Heavy rocket soars in debut test launch from Florida

CAPE CANAVERAL, Florida - The world's most powerful rocket, SpaceX's Falcon Heavy, roared into space through clear blue skies in its debut test flight on Tuesday from a Florida launch site where moon missions once began, in another milestone for billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk's private rocket company.

The 23-story-tall jumbo rocket, carrying a cherry red Tesla Roadster automobile into space as a mock payload, thundered off its launchpad in billowing clouds of steam and rocket exhaust at 2045 GMT (4:45 am in Manila) at the Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral.

Boisterous cheering could be heard from SpaceX workers at the company's headquarters in Hawthorne, California, where a livestream feed of the event originated. Several hundred spectators packed a campground near Cocoa Beach, 5 miles (8 km) from the space center, to watch the blastoff.

Musk previously said one of the most critical points of the flight would come as two side boosters separated from the central rocket within three minutes of launch. That occurred seemingly without a hitch.

Then, capitalizing on cost-cutting reusable rocket technology pioneered by SpaceX, the two side boosters flew themselves back to Earth for safe simultaneous touchdowns on twin landing pads at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station about eight minutes after launch. The center booster was expected for a return landing on a drone ship floating at sea, but its fate was not immediately known.

Musk told reporters on the eve of the rocket's test flight that he would "consider it a win if it just clears the (launch) pad."

While the Falcon Heavy's initial performance appeared, by all accounts, to have been near flawless, it remained to be seen whether the upper stage of the vehicle and its payload would survive a six-hour "cruise" phase to high Earth orbit through the planet's radiation belts.

TURNING POINT 

The launch, so powerful that it shook the walls of the press trailer at the complex, was conducted from the same site used by NASA's towering Saturn 5 rockets to carry Apollo missions to the moon more than 40 years ago. SpaceX has said it aspires to send missions to Mars in the coming years.

The successful liftoff was a key turning point for Musk's privately owned Space Exploration Technologies, which stands to gain a new edge over the handful of rivals vying for lucrative contracts with NASA, satellite companies and the US military.

Falcon Heavy is designed to place up to 70 tons into standard low-Earth orbit at a cost of $90 million per launch. That is twice the lift capacity of the biggest existing rocket in America's space fleet - the Delta 4 Heavy of rival United Launch Alliance (ULA), a partnership of Lockheed Martin Corp and Boeing Co - for about a fourth the cost.

The demonstration flight put the Falcon Heavy into the annals of spaceflight as the world's most powerful rocket in operation, with more lift capacity than any space vehicle to fly since NASA's Saturn 5, which was retired in 1973, or the Soviet-era Energia, which flew its last mission in 1988.

Propelled by 27 rocket engines, the Falcon Heavy packs more than 5 million pounds of thrust at launch, roughly three times the force of the Falcon 9 booster rocket that until now has been the workhorse of the SpaceX fleet. The new heavy-lift rocket is essentially constructed from three Falcon 9s harnessed together side by side.

Going along for the ride in a bit of playful cross-promotional space theater was the sleek red, electric-powered sports car from the assembly line of Musk's other transportation enterprise, Tesla Inc.

The Tesla Roadster is supposed to be sent into a virtually indefinite solar orbit, on a path taking it as far from Earth as Mars. Adding to the whimsy, SpaceX has planted a space-suited mannequin in the driver's seat of the convertible.

Whether the car makes it onto its planned trajectory will not be known before late on Tuesday, SpaceX said. The roadster, which carries a plaque inscribed with the names of more than 6,000 SpaceX employees, could instead end up in Earth orbit.

The launch followed an impressive run of successful paid missions - 20 in all since January 2017, when SpaceX returned to flight following a 2016 launchpad accident that destroyed a $62 million rocket and a $200 million Israeli communications satellite that it was to put into orbit two days later.

SpaceX had previously announced plans to eventually use the Falcon Heavy to launch two paying space tourists on a trip around the moon and back. Musk said on Monday he was now inclined to reserve that mission for development of an even more powerful SpaceX launch system, the Big Falcon Rocket, or BFR, which he said was proceeding more quickly than expected. 

source: news.abs-cbn.com

SpaceX's Elon Musk to launch his own car into deep space

MIAMI - SpaceX confirmed Wednesday its CEO Elon Musk plans to blast his cherry red electric car off toward the Red Planet when the company's Falcon Heavy rocket launches for the first time next month.

Many wondered if Musk was joking last week when he tweeted his plans for the Falcon Heavy's inaugural payload to be his "midnight cherry Tesla Roadster playing Space Oddity," the classic song by the late David Bowie.

"Destination is Mars orbit. Will be in deep space for a billion years or so if it doesn't blow up on ascent," the famed space enthusiast and Internet tycoon said on Twitter on Friday.

But SpaceX confirmed to AFP on Wednesday that the plan is for real.

Touted as the "world's most powerful rocket," the Falcon Heavy is designed to one day carry crew and supplies to deep space destinations such as the Moon and Mars.

It can propel 119,000 pounds (54 metric tons) -- or the same as a fully loaded Boeing 737 jet -- into orbit, twice the load of the Delta IV Heavy, currently the biggest rocket in operation.

The Saturn V moon rocket, which last flew in 1973, was more powerful.

There were also two bigger rockets during the Soviet era -- the N1 which was the most powerful first stage ever built, though it failed to launch successfully; and Energia which only launched twice.

The Falcon Heavy is essentially three of the California-based company's Falcon 9 rockets put together, with 27 Merlin engines instead of nine.

SpaceX says it will cost a third of what it costs to launch the Delta IV.

A date has not yet been set for the Falcon Heavy launch from Cape Canaveral, Florida, which has been delayed several times -- but SpaceX says it should happen in January 2018.

According to astronomer and blogger Phil Plait, who was able to reach Musk for more details about the plan, the car won't be sent into orbit around Mars, but will enter "an orbit around the Sun that takes it as close to the Sun as Earth and as far out as Mars."

Other items may be added to the payload as well.

"Just bear in mind that there is a good chance this monster rocket blows up, so I wouldn't put anything of irreplaceable sentimental value on it," Musk was quoted as saying.

source: news.abs-cbn.com

Elon Musk's new co could allow uploading, downloading thoughts: Wall Street Journal

Tesla Inc founder and Chief Executive Elon Musk has launched a company called Neuralink Corp through which computers could merge with human brains, the Wall Street Journal reported, citing people familiar with the matter.

Neuralink is pursuing what Musk calls the "neural lace" technology, implanting tiny brain electrodes that may one day upload and download thoughts, the Journal reported.

Musk has not made an official announcement, but Neuralink was registered in California as a "medical research" company last July, and he plans on funding the company mostly by himself, a person briefed on the plans told the Journal.

It is unclear what sorts of products Neuralink might create, but people who have had discussions with the company describe a strategy similar to space launch company SpaceX and Tesla, the Journal report said.

In recent weeks, Neuralink has also hired leading academics in the field, the Journal reported.

(Reporting by Nikhil Subba in Bengaluru; Editing by Maju Samuel)

source: news.abs-cbn.com

Elon Musk: tech dreamer reaching for sun, moon and stars

SAN FRANCISCO - Sending tourists for a trip around the moon is the latest big idea launched by Elon Musk, a Silicon Valley star known for turning his passions into visionary enterprises.

Musk has become one of the United States' best-known innovators. He was a founder of payments company PayPal, electric carmaker Tesla Motors and SpaceX, maker and launcher of rockets and spacecraft.

SpaceX recently announced that two private citizens have paid money to be sent around the Moon in what would mark the farthest humans have ever traveled to deep space since the 1970s.

In a sector where entrepreneurs often speak of "moonshots," Musk is one of the biggest dreamers.

The 45-year-old South Africa-born entrepreneur has channeled a dot-com fortune into a series of ambitious ventures.

Besides being the head of SpaceX and Tesla, Musk is the chairman of SolarCity, a solar panel installer recently bought by Tesla.

He also operates his own foundation focusing on education, clean energy and child health.

And he drafted a paper detailing the feasibility of an ultra-fast "Hyperloop" rail transport system that would transport people at near supersonic speeds, then made it freely available to enterprises willing to pursue the project.

'DOESN'T SIT AROUND'

"He is a visionary who has some key passions which he pursues with vigor," Jackdaw Research chief analyst Jan Dawson said of Musk.

"He doesn't sit around and wait for people to do something about them; he goes out and does it himself."

Musk's penchant for rocketing after his passions may appear to spread him thin, but he has built a record of success.

Musk appears strong on painting big ideas in broad strokes and then enlisting people skilled at tending to the nuts-and-bolts work needed to follow through, say observers.

"He doesn't seem to be able to focus," analyst Rob Enderle of Enderle Group said.

"He just likes coming up with the ideas and is good at picking other people who can deal with the plumbing -- that is why he is able to do a lot of stuff."

And while some may wonder whether hubris or realism reigns in Musk's moves, his businesses have gained value, with the jury still out on the wisdom of the Tesla acquisition of SolarCity.

"He can certainly sell his ideas," Enderle said.

"The fact his businesses have held together so long indicates he is not a con man."

FIGHTING AGAINST EVIL
Musk more than a year ago took part in creating a non-profit research company devoted to developing artificial intelligence that will help people and not hurt them.

Musk found himself in the middle of a technology world controversy by holding firm that AI could turn on humanity and be its ruin instead of a salvation.

Technology giants including Google, Apple and Microsoft have been investing in making machines smarter, contending the goal is to improve lives.

"If we create some digital super-intelligence that exceeds us in every way by a lot, it is very important that it be benign," Musk said at a conference in California.

He reasoned that even a benign situation with ultra-intelligent AI would put people so far beneath the machine they would be "like a house cat."

"I don't love the idea of being a house cat," Musk said, envisioning the creation of neural lacing that magnifies people's brain power by linking them directly to computing capabilities.

LIVING IN A GAME

Some of his ideas have prompted questions about whether Musk is a visionary or mad scientist. He has raised eyebrows with a theory that the world as it is known may be a computer simulation.

"I've had so many simulation discussions it's crazy," Musk said while fielding a question on the topic at the conference.

He maintained that "the odds that we are in base reality is one in billions."

Musk lives in Los Angeles and holds US, Canadian and South African citizenship.

He moved to Canada in his late teens and then to the United States, earning bachelor's degrees in physics and business from the University of Pennsylvania.

After graduating, Musk abandoned plans to pursue further studies at Stanford University and started Zip2, a company that made online publishing software for the media industry.

He banked his first millions before the age of 30 when he sold Zip2 to US computer maker Compaq for more than $300 million in 1999.

Musk's next company, X.com, eventually merged with PayPal, the online payments firm bought by Internet auction giant eBay for $1.5 billion in 2002.

Forbes estimates Musk's current net worth at $13.4 billion.

source: news.abs-cbn.com

SpaceX lands rocket on ocean platform for first time

MIAMI, United States – After four failed bids SpaceX finally stuck the landing Friday, powering the first stage of its Falcon 9 rocket onto an ocean platform where it touched down upright after launching cargo to space.

Images of the tall, narrow rocket gliding down serenely onto a platform that SpaceX calls a droneship sparked applause and screams of joy at SpaceX mission control in Hawthorne, California.

"The first stage of the Falcon 9 just landed on our Of Course I Still Love You droneship," SpaceX wrote on Twitter, after launch from Cape Canaveral, Florida at 4:43 pm (2043 GMT).

Landing from the chase plane pic.twitter.com/2Q5qCaPq9P

— SpaceX (@SpaceX) April 8, 2016

 NASA spokesman George Diller confirmed that the rocket had successfully landed, just minutes after the Falcon 9 propelled the unmanned Dragon cargo craft to orbit, carrying supplies for astronauts at the International Space Station.

SpaceX has once before managed to set the rocket down on land, but ocean attempts had failed, with the rocket coming close each time but either crashing or tipping over.

Speaking to reporters afterward, SpaceX CEO Elon Musk said that being able to return costly rocket parts for repeated use, instead of jettisoning them into the ocean after each launch, will make spaceflight less expensive and less harmful to the environment.

"It is just as fundamental in rocketry as it is in other forms of transport such as cars or planes or bicycles or anything," said Musk, who also runs Tesla Motors.

Musk said it costs around $300,000 to fuel a rocket, but $60 million to build one.

"If you have got a rocket that can be fully and rapidly reused, it is somewhere on the order of a 100-fold cost reduction, in marginal costs," he said, adding that he hoped his competitors would follow suit.

Obama leads praise

President Barack Obama led the praise, tweeting: "Congrats SpaceX on landing a rocket at sea. It's because of innovators like you & NASA that America continues to lead in space exploration."

Also on Twitter, Canadian astronaut Chris Hadfield said: "Landed! That is amazing! World-leading ability, proven.

"Opens the imagination to what is possible."

    Congrats SpaceX on landing a rocket at sea. It's because of innovators like you & NASA that America continues to lead in space exploration.

 — President Obama (@POTUS) April 8, 2016


Friday's breakthrough came after a closely watched return-to-flight mission, SpaceX's first cargo delivery since June 2015, when the Falcon 9 exploded just over two minutes after liftoff, destroying the rocket and the supply ship.

SpaceX blamed the blast on a faulty strut in the Falcon 9's upper booster, which allowed a helium bottle to snap loose, causing the explosion of the rocket, cargo ship and all its contents.

It has since upgraded its Falcon 9 rocket and changed its protocol to avoid a repeat.

This time, the gumdrop-shaped capsule was packed with nearly 7,000 pounds (3,100 kilos) of supplies for the astronauts living in orbit.

The Dragon's cargo includes an inflatable space room astronauts will test in microgravity.

Known as the Bigelow Expandable Activity Module, the chamber will be temporarily attached to the space station.

Lab mice for experiments and lettuce seeds for growing at the orbiting outpost were also included in the spacecraft, which should arrive at the International Space Station early Sunday.

'Proven it can work'

Musk said the rocket was being welded onto the droneship with metal shoes, so as not to tip over as it made its way back to land.

Next, the booster will undergo a series of tests, including 10 static fires on the launchpad, before engineers decide if it is in good enough shape to fly again.

If so, the next launch of the same booster could be in the next two to three months, Musk said.

"In the future, hopefully we will be able to relaunch them in a few weeks."

In the meantime, SpaceX will keep working on perfecting its landing techniques, whether on ocean or solid ground, since both options need to be available to suit different types of missions.

Musk said about half of SpaceX's rockets will need to land at sea, and it might take a few years to work out all the kinks.

"But I think it is proven that it can work," he said.

"We will get it to a point where it is routine to bring it back and the only changes to the rocket are to hose it down, give it a wash, add the propellant and fly it again."

source: www.abs-cbnnews.com