The name Elon Musk may not be familiar to many of you, but the company that he help found and later sold to Ebay, Paypal, will definitely ring a bell. Elon Musk also founded Zip2 which he sold to Compaq in 1999. Born and raised in South Africa, Elon Musk left that country in 1988 at the age of 17 for Canada against his parents wishes. He refused to accept the compulsory service requirement into a military that was still actively suppressing blacks and the civil rights in the apartheid era of South Africa. After his successful ventures on the Internet, Elon Musk turned to another of his main interest: space. He founded the company Space Exploration Technologies (Space X) in 2002 and began developing a new rocket concept from scratch called the Falcon. Just this last December, Space X was awarded a Commercial Orbital Tranportation Services (COTS) contract worth $1.6 billion dollars for 12 resupply flights to the International Space Station (ISS). Below the fold is a photo diary of the construction for the prototype of Falcon 9 rocket along with the launch infrastructure. As you look at the photos please think about all the highly technical jobs and skilled labor that went into building this system. All photos are courtesy of Space X and can be found at their website.
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