Dedicated to Mr. Reimund- The teacher who gave me a 100% on this book...

Have you ever looked up into the sky and tried to count the stars? How about wanting to be next to the stars?

That is exactly what a young Elon Musk thought. Musk was born and raised in South Africa in a town called Pretoria.

As long as he can remember, he has been in love with computers and technology. Any little bit that he could find he would get his hands on. However, his father was never there to help him pursue what made Elon happy. 

Musk describes his father as “such a terrible human being” and has talked about how his father would make Elon and his siblings sit in silence for hours of lecturing.

BE QUIET!!!

But Musk didn't let that stop him. When Musk was only 17, he moved to Canada to go to college. Soon afterwards, he moved to a college in Pennsylvania. 

During his time in college, he developed computer software and made a very rough banking system. Eventually, he polished this up and made what we now know as PayPal.

PAYPAL

This isn't nearly all that Musk has done though. Later in his life, Musk helped found many many companies. He founded companies like Neuralink (that help develop and make computers that go in your head to let them talk to computers)!

He became the CEO of Tesla (which designs and manufactures cars that can help the environment stay cleaner). Musk has also founded SpaceX (a company that's main goal is to make space travel easy and affordable for everyone), and many other companies. Even with all of these companies to keep him busy, he still had time to manage them all very well.

But, he had one goal in focus for many years. He wanted to get humans to Mars. When Musk first had this plan, all he could see were people on Mars. But this plan grew very quickly.

It went from a small group...

To people farming...

To a completely colonized Mars in big glass domes!

This was a massive project with lots upon lots of planning. From the big problems such as how will people and resources get there, to the little problems such as what will they do if they forget something; every little detail needs to be accounted for.

This took Musk and his team years to plan. After many teams of engineers and researchers had looked into colonizing Mars, Musk was told the good news: colonizing Mars is not only possible, but can be done in the near future.

It's possible!

Not

After Musk heard this he was instantly determined even more so than he already was. He set himself up with a timeline. In 2022, the first unmanned spacecraft with supplies and resources would make its way to Mars.

Shortly following it, a manned spacecraft will make its way to Mars in 2024. This also was not easy to plan.

Musk and his team had to find a way to not only be able to transport those materials and people to Mars, but to do it in a way that ensures almost nothing can go wrong. Again, after a lot of hard work and many, many mistakes, Musk had made a foolproof plan where there is next to no way anything could go wrong. 

We're ready!

In what must have felt like a flash to Musk,  it was time to launch the rockets. As everyone sat watching, Musk said a quick prayer. Anytime but now would have been good for mistakes: this is the real deal. Thankfully, the first rocket launched successfully.

Everything went perfectly. What a relief for Musk it was. Two years later, in 2024, the first manned launch was prepared. Same as before, everyone stayed tuned in because they knew Musk was making history. Again, Musk said a prayer before launch. Then SWOOSH, the rocket took off perfectly, just as expected.

Musk was incredibly happy for he had just watched his dream come true right in front of his and millions of other people's eyes. He knew that he was the main reason people were going to be on Mars.

Years and years later, Musk had settled down quite a bit and the Mars colony was thriving. He was no longer the sole CEO of most of his companies and he was enjoying the down time. But one thing had bugged him for the past years ever since the rocket launch: he had not gone with them to Mars.

I wish I went to Mars...

Although he got to carry out his dream and made history, he didn't get to experience it first hand. Since he had lived his whole life on Earth, he decided he wanted to carry on with it on Mars.

I'm going to Mars.

By this time, travel for people to move to Mars was not too uncommon. Given his wealth and fame, Musk was easily able to find the next trip to Mars that he could take.

This was not a short trip like a plane ride to another state. This was a multiple month trip and Musk was growing impatient. 

After many grueling months of waiting, Musk finally arrived. Once he stepped off the ship, he was astonished. Beautiful glass domes with thousands of people in all of them.

Until now, he had never seen them other than on T.V. He found the glass dome with the room that was assigned to him. Once he got settled, he knew he was home. 

Years later, when Musk was very old, someone had an interview with him. During the interview with Musk he said “When something is important enough, you do it; even if the odds are not in your favor”.