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It summarizes the whole thing well.


““As important as Steve Jobs was, here’s the difference: Elon Musk is trying to invent a future, not by providing the next app,” says renowned astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson.

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“What Elon Musk is doing is not simply giving us the next app that will be awesome on our smartphone,” deGrasse Tyson says. “No, he is thinking about society, culture, how we interact, what forces need to be in play to take civilization into the next century.”

Between Musk’s work at Tesla developing electric cars and his SpaceX plans to put humans on Mars by 2024 (and, eventually, to colonize the planet), the billionaire tech executive is attempting to revolutionize both human transportation and space exploration, deGrasse Tyson says.

Of course, as an astrophysicist and director of the Hayden Planetarium in New York, deGrasse Tyson might be expected to have a soft spot for Musk’s grand intergalactic plans. But deGrasse Tyson, who also hosts the show “StarTalk” on the National Geographic Channel, argues that space colonization could have a tremendous impact on civilization, potentially eliminating the need for warring over dwindling natural resources.

“Because there’s unlimited resources in space; resources that, on Earth, we fight wars over,” deGrasse Tyson tells CNBC Make It. “In space, you don’t need to fight a war, just go to another asteroid and get your resources. A whole category of war has the potential of evaporating entirely with the exploitation of space resources, which includes the unlimited access to energy as well.”

That’s the sort of universal issue that Musk is trying to tackle, deGrasse Tyson argues, which gives him the potential to have the greatest long-term effect on our civilization. “[H]e will transform civilization as we know it,” deGrasse Tyson says.

When talking about Elon Musk, we must be prepared to talk about big numbers. The world’s richest man—he’s currently worth about $209 billion, give or take a billion—has designed electric powered cars that can drive (with stops for charging) the 28000-mile width of the United States.

On Tuesday, SpaceX plans to launch the latest prototype of its Starship spacecraft — a system that could one day carry humans to Mars. The prototype, called.


The first time SpaceX attempted such an ambitious Starship flight, the 16-story vehicle blew up. Seven weeks later, Elon Musk’s company is trying again.

The latest Starlink satellites launched on Jan. 24 are equipped with laser links, and all Starlink satellites launched next year will be equipped with laser inter-satellite links, Elon Musk, SpaceX chief engineer confirmed on Twitter.

“All sats launched next year will have laser links. Only our polar sats have lasers this year and are v [version] 0.9,” Musk tweeted on Monday.

A Twitter user noticed a difference in a photo of the stack of 10 Starlink satellites deployed on Sunday’s Transporter-1 rideshare mission, and asked Musk if an object that looked like a black pipe was lasers, which he confirmed.

A new world record has been set for the number of satellites sent to space on a single rocket. The 143 payloads, of all shapes and sizes, rode to orbit on a SpaceX Falcon rocket that launched out of Florida.


Entrepreneur Elon Musk’s SpaceX company delivers 143 satellites to orbit on a single rocket flight.

Tesla recently shared some footage of its next-generation 4680 battery cells being produced. The video, which seems to be taken from the electric car maker’s pilot Roadrunner line, suggests that Tesla’s 4680 battery manufacturing system may very well be Elon Musk’s elusive “Alien Dreadnought” concept coming to life.

During the lead up to the Model 3’s initial ramp, Elon Musk envisioned a vehicle production system that was so automated, it would look extraterrestrial in nature. Dubbed as the “Alien Dreadnought,” this concept ultimately fell short of its targets, and Tesla eventually adopted a production system for the Model 3 that combined both human and automated machines. Since then, Tesla has taken steps towards increasing the automation of its vehicle production system, as evidenced by parts like the Model Y’s rigid wiring, which are optimized for installation by robots.

Tesla’s video of its 4680 battery production line suggests that the company’s level of automation has reached levels that have never been seen before. As noted by TSLA bull @truth_tesla on Twitter, the footage shared by Tesla in its recruitment video showed a battery production line that is incredibly automated. This could be seen immediately in Tesla’s main battery production line, which, unlike traditional battery manufacturing facilities, is largely absent of human workers.