Tech billionaire Elon Musk has said his rocket company SpaceX will now accept the meme-inspired cryptocurrency dogecoin as payment.
In a tweet he said SpaceX will launch the “DOGE-1 Mission to the Moon” early next year.
His announcement came as dogecoin continued to fall after he said on TV that dogecoin was a “hustle”.
Last month, Elon Musk tweeted that SpaceX was going to put a “literal Dogecoin on the literal moon”.
Canada’s Geometric Energy Corporation announced the dogecoin-funded mission on May 9, although the statement did not reveal its financial value.
“This mission will demonstrate the application of cryptocurrency beyond Earth orbit and set the foundation for interplanetary commerce,” SpaceX Vice President of Commercial Sales Tom Ochinero was quoted as saying in the statement.
Elon Musk’s tweets in recent months have helped to turn the once-obscure digital currency, which was started as a social media joke, into the world’s fourth-biggest cryptocurrency.
Dogecoin has soared by more than 800% over the last month, with its total market value rising above $70 billion, according to cryptocurrency data tracker CoinGecko.com.
However, dogecoin lost more than a third of its price on May 9, after Elon Musk called it a “hustle” while he was hosting the Saturday Night Live show.
In February, electric carmaker Tesla, where Elon Musk is chief executive, said it bought $1.5 billion worth of bitcoin and was planning to accept the cryptocurrency as payment for its vehicles.
The announcement was seen as another major step towards the mainstream acceptance of bitcoin and helped to boost the price of the cryptocurrency to a fresh record high of nearly $62,000.
Last month, Tesla announced that its profits for the first three months of the year were $438 million, up from $16 million last year, bolstered by sales of Bitcoin and environmental credits.
Elon Musk also revealed on Saturday Night Live that he has Asperger’s syndrome.
People with Asperger’s interpret the environment around them differently to other people.
It is thought to be the first time Elon Musk has spoken about his condition.
Dogecoin has jumped in value by 50% after inventor Elon Musk dubbed it “the people’s crypto”.
Cryptocurrencies such as Dogecoin and Bitcoin are generated by computers. Their supposed value comes from the finite number that can be computed.
Dogecoin, a cryptocurrency which started off as a joke, uses a Shiba Inu dog as its mascot and is based on a meme featuring the animal.
The currency has risen more than 800% in the year so far.
After reaching a high of $0.058, each dogecoin is currently changing hands for about $0.046, suggesting a total value for all 128 billion coins of about $5.89 billion.
According to an interview with Vice, dogecoin was created in 2013 by a pair of software workers after one of them made a joke about the next big cryptocurrency.
However, with no intrinsic value like gold or land, and no ability to generate an income like a company or bond, cryptocurrencies are extremely volatile and can crash as fast as they rise.
This makes them hard to value and makes their prices susceptible to tips from backers or sudden panics.
Critics point out that while any given cryptocurrency may have a finite supply of units, the number of cryptocurrencies is ever-growing and potentially limitless.
People have lost large amounts of money in steep drops in the value of cryptocurrencies and in hacks and corrupted or lost hard drives.
Bitcoin’s value dropped by $5,000 on January4 to about $29,000 before recovering the lost ground. On January 11, it dropped $9,000 to $32,000.
Because the cryptocurrencies can pass international borders quickly and are not regulated like cash or regular investments, investigating thefts is hard.
Last month, the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) issued a stark warning to investors in so-called cryptoassets.
The financial watchdog said investors should be “prepared to lose all their money” should their investment’s value collapse.
Elon Musk has grilled trading app Robinhood’s co-founder, Vladimir Tenev, about why it limited users to only being able to buy a small number of shares in some companies.
The move came after GameStop’s stock surged amid a campaign to cause hedge funds large losses.
Vladimir Tenev denied “conspiracies” that he was trying to help the hedge funds.
Instead he blamed a demand that Robinhood provide a $3 billion security deposit at short notice.
The interview was conducted on the audio-only social network Clubhouse.
Tesla boss’ 90-minute appearance was a major coup for Clubhouse, which is currently in a “beta” testing phase and requires users to be invited to access its platform.
It allows people to join private rooms for conversations, but participants are capped at 5,000.
However, fans streamed the interview on YouTube and overflow rooms on the platform, as Elon Musk’s appearance attracted unprecedented attention.
Elon Musk also spoke about travel to Mars, Bitcoin and brain implants during his session.
Robinhood curbed buying of GameStop and some other shares last week.
Unlike most trading platforms, it does not charge a commission for letting users buy and sell shares. Instead it makes money by selling data on those deals to others before they go through.
Some hedge funds have lost out on the rise in GameStop’s shares because they had shorted the stock. This is where an investor tries to make money by betting a company’s share price will fall.
Elon Musk questioned to what degree Robinhood was “beholden to” Citadel Securities, which is its biggest client. Citadel has suffered losses as a result of an investment in a hedge fund that had taken a large short position on GameStop.
He has previously been critical of short selling, claiming it to be a “legal” scam.
Vladimir Tenev acknowledged that there had been “a rumor that Citadel or other market makers kind of pressured us into” putting restriction on trades, but added the claim was “just false”.
“Robinhood stands for, you know, democratizing access to stocks,” he said on Clubhouse.
“We want to give people the access… but we had no choice in this case, we had to conform to our regulatory capital requirements.”
Elon Musk asked in response: “Did you sell your clients down the river, or [did] you have no choice?”
Vladimir Tenev repeated that Robinhood had to comply with financial requirements.
He said this involved an order from the National Securities Clearing Corporation – a clearing house used by the company – to provide “around $3bn” to back up its trades. He added the demand was later reduced to $700 million.
Vladimir Tenev conceded, however, that Robinhood needed to be more transparent.
“We were able to open and serve our customers,” he said, adding that Robinhood had raised more than $1bn within 24 hours.
“When we do open [on Monday]… we’ll be able to kind of relax the stringent position limits that we put on these securities on Friday.”
Elon Musk also came out in support of Bitcoin, saying he thought it was on “the verge of getting a broad acceptance” by conventional finance.
Bitcoin has surged in value in recent months, but some experts say it is volatile and will crash soon.
Elon Musk also said human travel to Mars will be possible within five-and-a-half years – and outlined his vision to relocate some humans there from Earth.
He also said he believed he could get the journey time to the Red Planet down from six months to one month.
Another of Elon Musk’s projects, Neuralink, received attention in the interview.
The start-up explores ways to connect the human brain to a computer interface.
Elon Musk said he hoped the technology could be used, in early applications, for humans with serious brain injuries.
SpaceX will make a second attempt in the coming hours to get NASA astronauts Doug Hurley and Bob Behnken into orbit.
On May 27, the Dragon capsule’s flight to the International Space Station (ISS) was postponed because of poor weather at Florida’s Kennedy Space Center.
Forecasters say conditions on May 30 will probably be touch and go again.
It follows the spectacular explosion on May 29 of a rocket prototype at SpaceX’s R&D facility in Texas.
SpaceX has been trialing a new design for a future vehicle it calls Starship. The latest model was destroyed in the blast.
The development work at Boca Chica, close to the Mexican border, is entirely separate from SpaceX’s commercial crew activities with NASA.
Doug Hurley’s and Bob Behnken’s lift-off at Kennedy is scheduled for 15:22 EDT.
There’s huge focus on their mission because it will mark the first time that the US has been able to launch its astronauts to the ISS since the retirement of NASA’s space shuttles in 2011.
It will also be the first occasion that NASA has used a private company to transport one of its crews to orbit.
However, people were wrong if they thought this attention added to the pressure to get the astronauts off the ground, said NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine.
“We will launch when we are ready,” he told reporters.
“I’ll tell you, the President and the Vice President were proud of the NASA team and the SpaceX team for making the right call for the right reasons.”
The first launch attempt in the week was scrubbed just 16 minutes before the designated launch time. There had been much electrical activity in the air throughout the day, and controllers concluded it wouldn’t be prudent to proceed with the flight.
At the moment of postponement, Doug Hurley and Bob Behnken were sitting in their Dragon capsule atop its Falcon rocket with the booster fuels being loaded below them.
The frustration was that the countdown was going so smoothly; engineers had seen no technical issues of concern. The vehicles were in perfect shape to begin their ascent.
On May 30, they will follow exactly the same routines. The astronauts will head out to the pad about three hours prior to 15:22 EDT. A SpaceX “close out” team will help them strap into their capsule seats, and then it will be a case of running through the pre-flight checks with controllers.
If the launch goes ahead, Doug Hurley and Bob Behnken have about a 19-hour flight to the ISS. They’ll use that time to try out systems onboard the Dragon capsule, including having a go at manual flying. They’ll also need to get some sleep after what will have been a long day.
The astronauts are expected to stay at the ISS for between one and four months before returning to Earth.
SpaceX, which is run by the tech billionaire Elon Musk, has a $2.6 billion contract with NASA to provide six crew flights to the space station. The first of these is scheduled for the end of August, assuming nothing untoward happens on Doug Hurley’s and Bob Behnken’s demonstration.
Boeing has a similar contract, but it is a year at least behind SpaceX in its development timeline.
Tesla has overtaken Volkswagen as the world’s second most valuable automaker, after a dramatic rise in share price pushed its market value to more than $100 billion.
The milestone sets the stage for Tesla’s chief Elon Musk to collect billions
in pay tied to hitting that target.
The company’s share price has more than doubled since October, when it
reported a rare quarterly profit.
Tesla shares rose 4% on January 22, making its valuation second only to
Toyota.
Although Tesla has some way to go to catch up with Toyota, the Japanese car
making giant has a stock market valuation of more than $230 billion.
Some analysts say the rise in price reflects Tesla’s performance in recent
months, during which it has opened a factory in Shanghai and met its production
goals.
In January, Tesla said it had delivered more than 367,500 cars in 2019 – up
50% from 2018. Investors expect the new factory to act as a springboard that
will allow it to capture more of the Chinese market.
Despite the increase, Tesla’s sales remain small compared to those of its
competitors.
Meanwhile, Volkswagen delivered almost 11 million vehicles in 2019, while Toyota
sold more than 9 million in the first 11 months of 2019.
Tesla has also never made an annual profit and it is facing investigations
after complaints about battery fires and unexpected acceleration.
Elon Musk’s company is due to report its latest quarterly results to
investors this month.
If Tesla sustains the $100 billion valuation, it could unlock the first
piece of a $2.6 billion compensation package for Elon Musk.
The plans calls for Elon Musk to receive payouts in shares over 10 years,
with the first award contingent on the company reaching $100 billion in market
capitalization and sustaining that value over both a month, and six-month
average.
Tesla also had to reach $20 billion in revenue and earn $1.5 billion, after
adjusting for items like taxes – thresholds the carmaker reached in 2018.
Tesla was valued at about $55 billion when the pay deal was approved.
For the SpaceX, this mission is a key milestone in its short history. Elon
Musk, a technology entrepreneur and engineer, set up the organization with the
specific intention of taking people into space.
Elon Musk told reporters immediately after the launch: “It’s been 17 years to get to this point, from 2002 to now. To be
frank, I’m a little emotionally exhausted because it was super stressful.
“Our focus has been on serving
NASA’s needs but once Dragon is in regular operation, I think we will seek
commercial customers of which the NASA administrator, and NASA in general, has
been very supportive.”
He said those customers could include private citizens going to the ISS,
just as they have done on Soyuz vehicles in the past.
Separately, Elon Musk is developing a much bigger system – which he calls
the Starship and Super Heavy rocket – to transport people to the Moon and Mars.
The Dragon crew capsule is a variant on the ISS cargo freighter flown by
SpaceX.
Upgrades include life-support systems, obviously; and more powerful
thrusters to push the vessel to safety if something goes wrong with a rocket
during an ascent to orbit.
It also has four parachutes instead of the freighter’s three to control the
return to Earth.
Dragon crew capsules will splashdown in the Atlantic not far from Kennedy.
NASA is essentially now contracting out crew transport to SpaceX.
Whereas in the past, NASA engineers would have top-down control of all
aspects of vehicle design and the agency would own and operate the hardware –
the relationship with industry has been put on a completely new footing.
Today, NASA sets broad requirements and industry is given plenty of latitude
in how it meets those demands.
After being taken to orbit, the Dragon makes its own way to the station
using onboard thrusters.
One of the big differences between this mission and standard cargo flights
is the mode of approach and attachment to the ISS. Freighters come up under the
orbiting lab and are grappled by a robotic arm and pulled into a berthing
position.
ISS astronauts will be watching closely to see that the capsule behaves as
it should.
The Dragon is expected to stay at the station until March 8. The current plan has it undocking, firing its thrusters to come out of orbit, and splashing down at roughly 13:45 GMT.
The battery would prevent a repeat of a notorious incident last year where the entire South Australia lost power, Jay Weatherill said.
Elon Musk has described it as three times more powerful than the world’s next biggest battery.
The idea began when Elon Musk was asked on Twitter if he was serious about helping to resolve South Australia’s electricity woes.
Tesla boss said he was – adding that if the battery wasn’t built within 100 days, South Australia would receive it for free.
The countdown began on September 30 after a plan was approved by the state government and regulators. Tesla finished the battery in about 60 days.
Located near Jamestown, about 125 miles north of Adelaide, the battery is connected to a wind farm run by French energy company Neoen.
When fully charged, the battery can power up to 30,000 homes for an hour. However, it will mostly be used to support and stabilize existing electricity supplies.
The mega-battery is comprised of a grid system that runs on the same technology that powers Tesla’s cars.
In a statement, Tesla said the completion of the battery “shows that a sustainable, effective energy solution is possible”.
Elon Musk’s company, Tesla, expects to raise nearly $1.8 billion by selling “junk” bonds to private investors – even more than the electric automaker aimed for when it announced the offering this month.
Tesla said the money will keep its balance sheet steady as it ramps up manufacturing of its newest car.
The company aims to make 5,000 of its mass market Model 3 a week by the end of this year.
It has estimated it is already spending about $100 million a week to hit that target.
On August 4, Tesla said was looking to raise $1.5 billion by selling bonds, but after one week it said it now expected to raise $1.77 billion from the sale.
The fundraising is limited to major institutions and not private investor.
Junk bonds are ones that pay a higher yield than normal bonds (5.3% in Tesla’s case), but also carry a higher risk of not being paid back. The bonds are set to be repaid in 2025.
Analysts said Tesla‘s ability to raise more than $1.5 billion indicated an appetite for risk among investors, as low interest rates have limited returns in many other types of investments. High stock market valuations have also made it harder to make a profit.
“Without the proceeds from the note offering, Tesla’s liquidity position would be stressed,” analysts at Moody’s said, warning of risks to potential investors.
Tesla had about $3 billion in cash at the end of June, but it spent more than $2 billion in the most recent quarter.
The company has frequently turned to investors to overcome persistent operating losses.
Tesla plans to eventually make more than 500,000 of the new Model 3 cars a year at its Fremont factory – or about 10,000 per week.
Moody’s said the target was ambitious given the relatively small size of the US electric car market.
The four-door Model 3 will then be available to the public, with a base price of $35,000, almost half that of the Tesla’s next-cheapest model.
Tesla’s share price more than doubled between December and late June as investors backed Elon Musk’s strategy to transform the low-volume luxury electric car maker into a producer for the crowded mass-market, but has since fallen back.
Registrations for new Tesla cars in California, its largest market, were down 24% in April compared with April 2016, according to IHS Markit data. Tesla responded by calling the figure “cherry-picked” data.
Image source Twitter
Tesla reported that first-half 2017 global deliveries for all its models rose to 47,100. That was at the lower end of its predicted sales range of 47,000 to 50,000.
In its last full financial year results, Tesla made a loss of $889 million.
Elon Musk’s tweeted images follow news last week that Volvo would become the first traditional vehicle manufacturer to phase out the petrol and diesel powered combustion engine, in a move toward hybrid and electric car production.
The state of South Australia will install the world’s biggest lithium ion battery in a “historic” deal with electric car company Tesla and energy company Neoen.
According to Premier Jay Weatherill, the battery will protect South Australia from the kind of energy crisis which famously blacked out the state.
Tesla CEO Elon Musk confirmed a much-publicized promise to build the battery within 100 days, or do it for free.
The 100-megawatt (129 megawatt-hour) battery should be ready this year.
Elon Musk said in Adelaide on July 7: “There is certainly some risk, because this will be largest battery installation in the world by a significant margin.”
According to South Australia’s government, the Tesla-built battery, paired with a Neoen wind farm, will operate around the clock and be capable of providing additional power during emergencies.
“It will completely transform the way in which renewable energy is stored, and also stabilize the South Australian network as well as putting downward pressure on prices,” Premier Jay Weatherill said.
Tesla CEO Elon Musk has announced that his company will unveil an electric articulated truck in September 2017.
Additionally, the Tesla CEO said an electric pick-up truck would be shown off in around 18-24 months.
In 2016, Elon Musk expressed the company’s desire to branch out beyond cars.
However, analysts are concerned Tesla will not meet demand for its current projects.
Image source Flickr
The Model 3, a more mid-market car compared to what Tesla currently offers, has 400,000 pre-orders – vastly more than the company can manufacture in a year. The Model 3 is due to go into production later this year.
However, despite this hurdle, investors seem confident that Elon Musk will meet his ambitious promises – Tesla’s surging stock price saw it briefly become the most valuable car maker in the US on April 10.
Speaking about the truck, Elon Musk said his team had done an “amazing job” and the vehicle would be “seriously next level”.
In a string of tweets sent out on April 13, Elon Musk also said that the next version of its roadster sports car will be a convertible.
Elon Musk has launched Neuralink, a start-up which aims to develop technology that connects our brains to computers.
A report from the Wall Street Journal, later confirmed in a tweet by Elon Musk, said Neuralink was in its very early stages and registered as a “medical research” company.
Neuralink will develop so-called “neural lace” technology which would implant tiny electrodes into the brain.
The technique could be used to improve memory or give humans added artificial intelligence.
Image source Flickr
According to the Journal, leading academics in the field have been signed up to work at the company which is being funded privately by Tesla chief executive.
Specialists in the field envision a time when humans may be able to upload and download thoughts.
In a tweet on March 28, Elon Musk confirmed the existence of Neuralink and said more details about the company would be made public next week via WaitButWhy – a site known for illustrating its lengthy post with often crude but charming stick figure drawings.
As well as heading electric carmaker Tesla, Elon Musk is involved with running space exploration company Space X, a project to reinvent transport called Hyperloop and, most recently, a company investigating the feasibility of boring tunnels underneath Los Angeles – and a new project to power Australia.
Tweeting about Neuralink, Elon Musk conceded it would be “difficult to dedicate the time, but existential risk is too high not to”.
SpaceX has announced that two private citizens have paid to be sent around the Moon.
The company’s CEO Elon Musk said the mission is planned for late 2018 and the tourists “have already paid a significant deposit”.
The two unnamed space tourists will fly aboard a spaceship which is set for its first unmanned test flight later this year.
Elon Musk said the co-operation of NASA had made the plan possible.
He said the two passengers “will travel faster and further into the solar system than any before them”.
Elon Musk declined to reveal their identities, only saying that they knew each other and that “it’s nobody from Hollywood”.
Image source Wikimedia
He added: “Like the Apollo astronauts before them, these individuals will travel into space carrying the hopes and dreams of all humankind, driven by the universal human spirit of exploration.
“We expect to conduct health and fitness tests, as well as begin initial training later this year.”
The first mission would be unmanned, and the next one – with crew – was expected in Q2 of 2018, he said.
Elon Musk also said the first passengers “are entering this with their eyes open, knowing that there is some risk here”.
“They’re certainly not naive, and we’ll do everything we can to minimize that risk, but it’s not zero.”
The tourists would make a loop around the Moon, skimming the lunar surface and then going well beyond, the entrepreneur said.
The mission will not involve a lunar landing.
If NASA decided it wanted to be first to take part in a lunar flyby mission, then the agency would have priority, Elon Musk said.
The US has not sent astronauts to the Moon since the early 1970s.
Richard Branson’s Virgin Galactic venture proposes to send tourists on short sub-orbital flights in its vehicle SpaceShipTwo; the cost of a seat is listed as $250,000.
However, Virgin Galactic’s space vehicle was destroyed in a crash in 2014 and it remains unclear when the first flights with paying customers will begin.
SpaceX has successfully launched the Dragon CRS-10 (2) mission carrying a cargo ship for the International Space Station (ISS) following the postponement of take-off on February 18 because of technical problems.
Witnesses said the Dragon rocket was only briefly visible before making its way into the clouds.
The launch was made from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida.
The rocket booster successfully landed on the ground nine minutes after taking off.
Image source Flickr
The touchdown is part of SpaceX’s strategy of returning rockets to earth so they can be reused rather than jettisoning them in the ocean after a single launch.
Moments after the rocket landed, the SpaceX Dragon supply ship successfully reached orbit, prompting cheers inside the SpaceX Mission Control room.
The Dragon is now making its way to the ISS, and is expected to arrive on February 22.
On January 14, SpaceX resumed flights by launching a Falcon 9 vehicle from the Vandenberg Air Force Base on the California coast.
It was the first mission by the private rocket company since one of its vehicles exploded on the launch pad in September.
The company founder, Elon Musk, wants SpaceX to be at the forefront of the race involving several companies to deploy satellite-based internet services over the next few years.
SpaceX also has a long queue of customers all waiting for a ride to orbit – including America’s civil space agency (NASA), the US military and multiple outfits in the commercial sector.
A Falcon-9 rocket operated by SpaceX has exploded on the launch pad at Cape Canaveral where it was being test-fired ahead of a launch.
In a statement, SpaceX blamed the blast on “an anomaly” and said no-one had been injured.
The company said the rocket’s payload, a satellite due to be launched on September 3, was also destroyed.
The force of the blast shook buildings several miles away and sent a plume of smoke high above the complex.
SpaceX is seeking to create a new era of reusable rockets and affordable private space travel and has used its Falcon-9 rocket to take supplies to the International Space Station (ISS).
Photo Fox News
In December 2015, SpaceX successfully landed a Falcon-9 back on Earth after a mission – a first in rocketry.
It went on to recover five more boosters, with most of them touching down on an ocean platform.
The idea is to re-fly these rockets, and the first such “second hand” vehicle is scheduled to launch in October.
SpaceX is run out of Hawthorne near Los Angeles by Elon Musk, who made his fortune with internet companies.
As well as being the rocket company’s CEO, Elon Musk also heads up the Tesla electric car company.
According to Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, a “significant” explosion happened just after 09:00 (14:00 GMT) at Launch Complex 40, which is leased by SpaceX.
Spokesman Bryan Purtell said: “Our emergency management teams are responding right now.”
The Falcon-9 rocket was carrying the Israeli-built Amos-6 communications satellite.
Tesla Motors CEO Elon Musk has announced the electric car maker is launching a new battery pack for the performance versions of its Model S and X cars that will extend the range and mean faster acceleration.
Elon Musk hailed the upgraded charger as a “profound milestone”.
The battery cell chemistry is the same, but the reconfigured product stored more energy in the same space, he said.
Photo Tesla
Tesla, which this month posted a steeper-than-expected loss, is adding a new sedan car to its sports line-up.
Elon Musk claimed that the new 100-kilowatt hour battery pack means high-end versions of the Model S sedan, called the P100D, will be the world’s fastest accelerating car in production.
The P100D will do 0-60mph in 2.5 seconds. Elon Musk said there were faster cars on the market, but these were limited-run vehicles, while the Tesla is aimed at the mass market, he said.
“These are very profound milestones and I think will help convince people around the world that electric is the future,” Elon Musk said on a conference call with journalists.
The new battery extends the range of performance versions of the new Model S well beyond 300 miles, from about 290 miles, Tesla said.
Elon Musk said that in cool weather, a driver could travel from San Francisco to Los Angeles – a nearly 400 mile drive – without recharging.
In May 2016, Tesla said it was stepping up production plans for its upcoming Model 3 mass-market sedan and would build a total of 500,000 all-electric vehicles in 2018, two years ahead of schedule.
The Model S and X vehicles with the upgraded batteries will help fund the more affordable Model 3 still in development, Elon Musk said. The performance versions of the S and X without the new battery currently start at $108,000 and $115,500, respectively.
However, Tesla Motors also warned that investment would ramp up as well.
The company has been under investigation from US safety regulators following a fatal crash in Florida earlier this year involving its drive-assistance feature known as Autopilot.
Elon Musk said a software update of the feature is nearing completion, adding that it will result in “material improvements in the autonomy of the car”.
SpaceX’s Elon Musk has announced he is planning to send his Dragon spacecraft to Mars by 2018.
The billionaire has long targeted a trip to Mars and has previously said he can get humans to the red planet by 2026.
SpaceX is planning “Red Dragon” missions to Mars to test technology for bigger missions.
In a tweet, Elon Musk said that its Dragon 2 spacecraft is “designed to be able to land anywhere in the solar system”.
Photo PANews
However, Elon Musk “wouldn’t recommend transporting astronauts beyond Earth-moon region” as the internal area of the spacecraft is only the size of a large car.
“Wouldn’t be fun for longer journeys,” he said in a tweet.
SpaceX has been developing rockets and has a $1.6 billion contract with NASA to supply the International Space Station (ISS).
On April 27, the company won an $83 million contract from the US Air Force to launch a satellite for GPS navigation services.
It is a significant win for SpaceX as, for the last decade, Lockheed Martin and Boeing have been supplying space launches for the military.
In December 2015, SpaceX had another breakthrough, landing its Falcon-9 unmanned rocket upright.
That was an important development in its plan to cut the cost of space launches by re-using rockets.
Pre-orders of Tesla’s much-anticipated Model 3 electric car currently total 276,000, CEO Elon Musk has announced.
Tesla unveiled the five-seater car – its lowest-cost vehicle to date – on March 31.
Elon Musk tweeted the total reflected the orders received by the end of April 2.
Pre-orders of the Model 3 will not necessarily all translate into actual sales when the car is released, with first deliveries in late 2017.
Potential car owners need to put down $1,000 deposits to reserve their vehicles.
Such has been the interest that Elon Musk tweeted the company was “definitely going to need to rethink production planning”.
Elon Musk has said his goal is to produce about 500,000 vehicles a year once production is at full capacity.
The basic model will start at $35,000 and have a range of at least 215 miles per charge.
Tesla delivered 50,580 vehicles in 2015. Most of those were its Model S saloon, which overtook Nissan’s Leaf to become the world’s best selling pure-electric vehicle.
However, Tesla still posted a net loss of $889 million for 2015, partly because it spent $718 million on research and development over the period.
It left Tesla with cash reserves of $1.2 billion, down from $1.9 billion a year earlier.
Tesla is facing competition from other electric cars with a similar price and range that will become available first, including General Motors’ Chevy Bolt and BYD’s Qin EV300.
Tesla has unveiled its lowest-cost vehicle to date, Model 3 electric car.
The price and range of the five-seater should make Model 3 appealing to new types of customers and could boost interest in other electric cars.
Tesla CEO Elon Musk said his goal was to produce about 500,000 vehicles a year once production is at full speed.
Photo Tesla
The company needs the new car to prove popular if it is to stay in business.
The first deliveries of Model 3 are scheduled to start in late 2017, and it can be ordered in advance in dozens of countries.
The basic model will start at $35,000 and have a range of at least 215 miles per charge.
In 2015, Tesla delivered 50,580 vehicles. Most of those were its Model S saloon, which overtook Nissan’s Leaf to become the world’s best selling pure-electric vehicle.
However, Tesla still posted a net loss of $889 million for 2015, partly because it spent $718 million on research and development over the period.
It left Tesla with cash reserves of $1.2 billion, down from $1.9 billion a year earlier.
SpaceX has successfully landed an unmanned Falcon-9 rocket upright, after sending 11 satellites into orbit.
The Falcon-9 craft touched down on December 21, about 10km from its launch pad at Cape Canaveral, Florida.
It is not the first spacecraft to land a booster vertically; that feat was claimed by the much smaller New Shepard rocket in Texas last month.
Nonetheless the Falcon-9 flight, which also went twice as high as New Shepard, is a milestone towards reusing rockets.
SpaceX aims to slash the cost of private space operations with such reusable components – but the company has not launched a rocket since one exploded in June.
On that occasion an unmanned Falcon-9 broke apart in flames minutes after lifting off from Cape Canaveral, with debris tumbling out of the sky into the Atlantic Ocean.
The rocket, which had 18 straight successes prior to the fateful flight, was in the process of sending a cargo ship to the International Space Station (ISS).
SpaceX has a $1.6 billion contract with NASA to send supplies to the ISS.
On Monday night, local time, the upgraded 23-storey-tall rocket took off from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station with the main stage returning about 10 minutes later to a landing site about 6 miles south of the launch pad.
Near the peak of its flight, at an altitude of some 125 miles, it propelled the rocket’s first stage – laden with 11 communications satellites – into space.
The flawless launch on December 21 is a major success for privately-owned Space Exploration Technologies, or SpaceX, the California-based company set up and run by high-tech entrepreneur Elon Musk.
Elon Musk has said the ability to return its rockets to Earth so they can be reused and re-flown would hugely reduce his company’s operational costs in the growing but highly competitive private space launch industry.
SpaceX employees broke out in celebration as they watched a live stream of the 156ft-tall white booster slowly descend to earth in the form of a glowing orange ball.
“Welcome back, baby!” Elon Musk said in a celebratory tweet.
SpaceX commentators described the launch and return – the first time an orbital rocket successfully achieved a controlled landing on Earth – as “incredibly exciting”.
“This was a first for us at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, and I can’t even begin to describe the joy the team feels right now having been a part of this historic first-stage rocket landing,” the top officer at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Brig Gen Wayne Monteith, said in a statement.
SpaceX is aiming to revolutionize the rocket industry, which up until now has lost millions of dollars in discarded machinery and valuable rocket parts after each launch.
Several earlier attempts to land the Falcon 9’s first stage on an ocean platform have failed.
After weeks of speculations, Tesla has unveiled Autopilot system.
While not fully self-driving, the software means the Model S and new Model X can “automatically steer down the highway, change lanes, and adjust speed in response to traffic”.
Tesla CEO Elon Musk said the Autopilot mode was designed to increase driver confidence on the road.
However, Elon Musk said users adopting the software – available in North America from October 15 – should exercise caution while using it.
“It should not hit pedestrians, hopefully,” he told the media.
“It should handle them well.”
He added that if the car is involved in a collision, the driver is still liable.
“The driver cannot abdicate responsibility. That will come at some point in the future.”
Other regions of the world would be updated in the next couple of weeks pending regulatory approval.
The software uses a combination of cameras, radar, ultrasonic sensors and mapping data to determine its position and navigate.
When the car has arrived at its destination, it is able to scan for an available space and park itself.
Unlike Google, which is aiming for a fully-autonomous vehicle, Tesla’s approach is to gradually introduce features which take away the need for drivers to carry out certain functions.
Elon Musk said: “Currently there are limitations to the software which would improve over time.
“If there’s heavy snow it’s going to be harder for the system to work, so we’d advise caution.
“Essentially it’s like a person – how well can a person figure out what route they should take. Over time it will be better than a person.
“Long term it will be way better than a person. It never gets tired, it’s never had anything to drink, it’s never arguing with someone in the car. It’s not distracted.”
Other carmakers such as BMW and Volvo are also developing, and implementing, autonomous features to their cars.
Google’s entirely self-driving car has clocked up well over one million miles on public roads, mostly in California.
The first full-scale Hyperloop will be built in central California in 2016.
Hyperloop is a new transportation method imagined up by entrepreneur Elon Musk.
The 5-mile test track will be built halfway between Los Angeles and San Francisco.
The system uses depressurized tubes, as well as magnets and fans, to propel up to 28 people at a time at high speeds.
This model will be slower and shorter than the full-sized near-supersonic system envisioned by Elon Musk.
Hyperloop Transportation Technologies announced the agreement with the developers of Quay Valley, California, a planned community that emphasizes sustainability.
The system will be built alongside the Interstate 5 freeway in central California, and the developers claim that it will be the first passenger-ready Hyperloop to be built in an urban area.
Elon Musk, who founded companies like Paypal, SpaceX, and Tesla Motors, first announced the idea of a Hyperloop in a 57-page white paper in August 2013.
In his original envisioning, Elon Musk imagined the system transporting people between Los Angeles and San Francisco- a distance of about 400 miles – in 30 minutes.
Shortly after the announcement Elon Musk handed the concept over to the public for anyone to develop, saying that he was too busy with other projects.
Since then hundreds of engineers have contributed ideas to the project during their spare time.
Elon Musk has described the design as a cross between Concorde, a railgun and an air hockey table.
Paypal founder Elon Musk has revealed plans for a radical new “hyperloop” transport system that could “shoot” passengers 380 miles from Los Angeles to San Francisco in 30 minutes.
Travellers enter aluminium pods mounted by skis either to their feet or to their cars.
The pods, mounted above the ground on columns 50 to 100 yards apart, travel through steel tubes, reaching speeds of up to 800 mph and travelling on a cushion of air.
Elon Musk, who is also behind electric car firm Tesla and space company SpaceX, says the system could be built for less than a high speed rail link.
He told Bloomberg Business Week the system would be “like getting a ride on Space Mountain at Disneyland”.
“It would have less lateral acceleration – which is what tends to make people feel motion sick – than a subway ride, as the pod banks against the tube like an airplane,” he said.
“It would feel supersmooth.”
“The Hyperloop (or something similar) is, in my opinion, the right solution for the specific case of high traffic city pairs that are less than about 1500 km or 900 miles apart,” Elon Musk claimed.
Elon Musk boasted on Twitter he has been working on the plan all night after promising to release the details today, creating massive speculation online over its technology.
“Pulled all nighter working on Hyperloop (as did others),” he tweeted.
“Hopefully not too many mistakes.”
Elon Musk said he started thinking about the idea when plans for a 130 mph (210 km/h) high-speed train connection between LA and San Francisco were revealed, but now he has detailed his own version on Tesla’s site.
“I originally started thinking about [Hyperloop] when I read about California’s high-speed rail project which was somewhat disappointing,” he told a Google Hangout with Richard Branson last week.
“It’s actually worse than taking the plane. I get a little sad when things are not getting better in the future.
“Another example would be like the Concorde being retired and the fact there is no supersonic passenger transport. I think that is sad. You want the future to be better than the past, or at least I do.”
Elon Musk made his fortune with the internet payment system PayPal before switching his skills into developing the new Falcon rocket system for NASA and the Tesla electric car.
Elon Musk unveils plans for the Hyperloop that will shoot passengers from LA to San Francisco in 30 minutes
HE claims Hyperloop would be a practical solution for city pairs separated by 1,000 miles (1,600 km) or less. Beyond this distance, it would be better to take a plane, he explained.
But for the shorter distance, Elon Musk’s new concept would beat the plane, he argues, because it would not waste time ascending and descending.
“You want a transport system that is roughly twice as fast as the next best alternative, that costs less, that is safer, that is not subject to weather and is more convenient,” Elon Musk said.
“If there were such a thing, I think most people would take it. In fact, it would increase the travel between the city pairs because of the increased convenience.”
Experts say Elon Musk’s track record could help the plan become a reality.
“Hyperloop is quite an old science fiction idea but Elon Musk is the sort of man who could make it work,” said physicist Martin Archer from Imperial College London.
“He’s the guy who made electric cars go fast with Tesla, which many people didn’t think would be possible; and he’s the head of SpaceX which is the only commercial rocket builder that has managed to hook up with the International Space Station.”
Elon Musk says he will leave it to others to build the system initially.
“I have to focus on core Tesla business and SpaceX business, and that’s more than enough,” he told investors of Tesla, his electric car firm.
“If nothing happens for a few years, with that I mean maybe it could make sense to make the halfway path with Tesla involvement,” Elon Musk said.
“Hyperloop consists of a low pressure tube with capsules that are transported at both low and high speeds throughout the length of the tube,” Elon Musk said in an exhaustive paper detailing the system posted online.
“The capsules are supported on a cushion of air.”
Each of the capsules is pressurized, and Elon Musk says they have an emergency braking system as well as a reserve air supply in the event of an emergency.
The entrepreneur admits the scheme came from a disdain for current systems.
“When the California <<high speed>> rail was approved, I was quite disappointed, as I know many others were too.
“How could it be that the home of Silicon Valley and JPL – doing incredible things like indexing all the world’s knowledge and putting rovers on Mars – would build a bullet train that is both one of the most expensive per mile and one of the slowest in the world?”
Elon Musk claims the scheme can power itself through solar energy.
“By placing solar panels on top of the tube, the Hyperloop can generate far in excess of the energy needed to operate.
“This takes into account storing enough energy in battery packs to operate at night and for periods of extended cloudy weather,” he claims.
Elon Musk estimates the overall cost of the tube, pillars, vacuum pumps and stations will be $4.06 billion for the passenger version of Hyperloop, and $5.31 billion for the larger version capable of sending cargo and even cars.
Elon Musk says a route from LA to San Francisco could be running within seven years.
“It could happen at least 4-5 years after a working prototype is developed, so 7-10 years away,” he told reporters.
“That’s comparable timing to the rail project.”
Elon Musk also said he may develop a prototype system himself, despite previously claiming he would leave it to others.
“I’ve sort of come around a little bit on my thinking here,” he said.
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