Elon Musk founder of Space X, Tesla, and many scientific research projects is who I believe to be a hero. His company has been more efficient than NASA when it comes to how quickly they are planning to send manned missions to different planets such as Mars and missions outside of our galaxy. He has taken the initiative that others haven’t which is why he is the leader that will push us forth in space exploration in our near future. Colonizing Mars is sooner than anyone thinks, and even exploring worlds beyond our galaxy is too.

Elon plans to start sending spacecraft containing supplies by 2018 to Mars, only a year from now. Since every two years is when they will be able to send more and more spacecraft because both orbits of Earth and Mars need to be aligned, within a decade we might have our first Martian city. Furthermore, NASA wasn’t planning to send spacecraft to Mars until the 2030s and that isn’t even to land on Mars, but to stay in low orbit above Mars. Overall, there is no doubt that Elon Musk and his team at Space X are working hard to take us to places we never had imagined mankind would go in our lifetimes or the next.

Additionally, besides planning for colonization of Mars he is working on making A.I. positive and working on the first expedition to a new star called Proxima Centauri. The reason for this expedition to Proxima Centauri isn’t for no reason, but because there is a planet in the system that is believed to contain liquid water making it habitable. Why go to this specific planet when there are others that are believed to be habitable? Well, because Proxima Centauri is the closest star system to us that has a habitable planet. Proxima Centauri is only 4.243 light years away which is still a far way off, but with new technology getting to this star system and others is going from science fiction to reality. Furthermore, Elon believes that if we don’t work on making A.I. that is positive than they will turn against us in the future if they excell human intelligence. Therefore, Elon Musk is a strong believer in pushing the limits in science and technology, and is essentially the forefront of our future.

There is some talk about space exploration and scientific research, but its seems not to be as prevalent now as it did when there was the first space race globally to see who could land the first of mankind on the moon. Most government funding in the United States goes to our military which is usually given roughly $600 billion USD a year as opposed to NASA who is given around $19 billion USD a year. With $19 billion USD a lot could be done at NASA and their budget has been increasing over the years. NASA has used this funding from the government to not just spacecraft and scientific research for more powerful satellites and probes, but they have funded Space X with $1 billion USD funding it more than Elon Musk has himself with $100 million USD. Astonishing enough Elon was kicked out of the U.S. after two failed rocket launch testes that blew up, but after he was kicked out he tried it again with an island he bought in the Caribbean and the third trial winded up actually working. All in all, Elon is my hero because of his persistence, and because once he has something in mind he will do everything in his power to make it happen; this is why he has the perfect qualities needed to not only be someone to invest time and money into space and science, but  are qualities needed to achieve anything in life especially in business just as Elon so happens to be in.