Video launched by spacecraft maker Space, X commemorating its Dragon pill, which on May 25, 2012, ended up being the first business spacecraft to dock with the International Spaceport Station. Space, X (A Britannica Publishing Partner), (born June 28, 1971, Pretoria, South Africa), South African-born American business owner who cofounded the electronic-payment company Pay, Buddy and formed Space, X, maker of launch cars and spacecraft. He was also one of the first significant investors in, in addition to president of, the electrical vehicle producer Tesla. Leading Questions, Elon Musk was born upon June 28, 1971. Elon Musk cofounded the electronic payment company Pay, Pal and established the spacecraft business Area, X.
Elon Musk founded Area, X, a company that makes rockets and spacecraft. He ended up being the primary executive officer and a major funder of Tesla, which makes electric cars and trucks. Musk was born to a South African dad and a Canadian mom. He displayed an early talent for computers and entrepreneurship. At age 12 he created a video game and offered it to a computer system publication. In 1988, after obtaining a Canadian passport, Musk left South Africa due to the fact that he hesitated to support apartheid through obligatory military service and since he looked for the higher economic chances readily available in the United States. Musk attended Queen's University in Kingston, Ontario, and in 1992 he moved to the University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, where he got bachelor's degrees in physics and economics in 1997.
In 1995 he founded Zip2, a business that provided maps and company directories to online papers. In 1999 Zip2 was purchased by the computer producer Compaq for $307 million, and Musk then established an online financial services business, X.com, which later became Pay, Friend, which focused on transferring cash online. The online auction e, Bay purchased Pay, Pal in 2002 for $1. 5 billion. Musk was long persuaded that for life to make it through, humankind has to become a multiplanet species. However, he was disappointed with the excellent cost of rocket launchers. In 2002 he founded Space Exploration Technologies (Area, X) to make more economical rockets.
A 3rd rocket, the Falcon Heavy (initially released in 2018), was designed to bring 117,000 pounds (53,000 kg) to orbit, almost two times as much as its largest competitor, the Boeing Business's Delta IV Heavy, for one-third the cost. Space, X has actually revealed the follower to the Falcon 9 and the Falcon Heavy: the Super Heavy, Starship system. The Super Heavy very first stage would be capable of raising 100,000 kg (220,000 pounds) to low Earth orbit. The payload would be the Starship, a spacecraft created for supplying fast transport between cities on Earth and developing bases on the Moon and Mars.
Dragon can carry as many as seven astronauts, and it had a crewed flight bring astronauts Doug Hurley and Robert Behnken to the ISS in 2020. Musk looked for to decrease the cost of spaceflight by establishing a fully recyclable rocket that might raise off and return to the pad it released from. Starting in 2012, Area, X's Grasshopper rocket made several brief flights to check such innovation. In addition to being CEO of Space, X, Musk was likewise chief designer in constructing the Falcon rockets, Dragon, and Grasshopper. Get a Britannica Premium membership and gain access to special material. Subscribe Now Musk had long had an interest in the possibilities of electrical cars, and in 2004 he turned into one of the major funders of Tesla Motors (later on relabelled Tesla), an electrical automobile business established by entrepreneurs Martin Eberhard and Marc Tarpenning.