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NASA Administrator Charles Bolden, left, congratulates SpaceX CEO and Chief Designer Elon Musk in front of the historic Dragon capsule that returned to Earth on May 31 following the first successful mission by a private company to carry supplies to the International Space Station on June 13, 2012 at the SpaceX facility in McGregor, Texas. (Photo: Wikimedia)
by David Parmer
If he did not exist…we would have to invent him.
If we were going to write a comic book, what the Japanese call “manga” and hipsters in Seattle call a “graphic novel,” we would need a hero. How about inventing an enigmatic hero, bigger than life who experiences a lonely childhood tinkering with computers on the southernmost part of the planet, then in his teens migrates to one of the most northern countries and begins university studies. After that he gains admission to a prestigious university in that country’s southern neighbor where he studies physics and economics at one of the nation’s top B-schools. He then starts a Ph.D. program at another elite school, but drops out after two days, whereupon he begins his stellar rise, i.e., a rise to the stars. First he hacks the financial system, makes it ridiculously easy to send money around the globe. From this he makes a cool $1.5 billion, then he goes on to co-found an electric car company named after the patron saint of geeks everywhere. He gets electric cars on the road, and along the way releases his patents so that others-without having to license his technology-can also build electric cars. He does this out of altruism, but also to get the industry (of which he is positioned squarely at the forefront) going. Sounds like a pretty good story? Shall we stop there, no, let’s keep going. He has an “interest” in space. He wants to see humans get off the planet, he is worried about our survival as a species. (What if a humongous asteroid hits the Earth? What if some virus threatens to wipe us all out?) So he forms a company, calls it Space X, and launches the first commercial satellite from a liquid fueled vehicle, and then gets a contract to send cargo to the planet’s orbiting space lab. He also plans to modify the cargo vehicle to carry a human crew into the far reaches of space. Well, OK, first to Mars– but a couple of decades before the nation’s space agency plans to do so. That should be enough for a good story, but wait, let’s add more: how about he invests in solar technology? His company becomes the largest provider of solar power systems and he plans a factory to be the biggest producer of solar panels on Earth. Finally, how about we add two wives and five children? OK, done. So what should we call the hero of our manga/graphic novel? Hmmmm. How about Elon Musk?
http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/currency/2014/06/elon-musk-shares-tesla-patents.html