Video launched by spacecraft maker Space, X celebrating its Dragon capsule, which on May 25, 2012, ended up being the first business spacecraft to dock with the International Area Station. Area, X (A Britannica Publishing Partner), (born June 28, 1971, Pretoria, South Africa), South African-born American business owner who cofounded the electronic-payment firm Pay, Friend and formed Area, X, maker of launch vehicles and spacecraft. He was likewise among the very first considerable investors in, in addition to ceo of, the electrical vehicle maker Tesla. Top Questions, Elon Musk was born on June 28, 1971. Elon Musk cofounded the electronic payment firm Pay, Pal and established the spacecraft business Space, X.
Elon Musk established Space, X, a company that makes rockets and spacecraft. He became the president and a significant funder of Tesla, that makes electric automobiles. Musk was born to a South African father and a Canadian mom. He displayed an early skill for computer systems and entrepreneurship. At age 12 he developed a computer game and sold it to a computer system magazine. In 1988, after acquiring a Canadian passport, Musk left South Africa because he hesitated to support apartheid through required military service and since he looked for the higher economic chances offered in the United States. Musk participated in Queen's University in Kingston, Ontario, and in 1992 he moved to the University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, where he received bachelor's degrees in physics and economics in 1997.
In 1995 he founded Zip2, a business that offered maps and company directory sites to online papers. In 1999 Zip2 was purchased by the computer system producer Compaq for $307 million, and Musk then established an online financial services business, X.com, which later on ended up being Pay, Buddy, which focused on transferring money online. The online auction e, Bay purchased Pay, Pal in 2002 for $1. 5 billion. Musk was long convinced that for life to make it through, humanity needs to end up being a multiplanet species. However, he was disappointed with the excellent expense of rocket launchers. In 2002 he founded Space Expedition Technologies (Area, X) to make more budget-friendly rockets.
A 3rd rocket, the Falcon Heavy (first introduced in 2018), was developed to carry 117,000 pounds (53,000 kg) to orbit, almost two times as much as its biggest competitor, the Boeing Company's Delta IV Heavy, for one-third the expense. Area, X has announced the successor to the Falcon 9 and the Falcon Heavy: the Super Heavy, Starship system. The Super Heavy very first stage would be capable of lifting 100,000 kg (220,000 pounds) to low Earth orbit. The payload would be the Starship, a spacecraft developed for supplying quick transport in between cities on Earth and developing bases on the Moon and Mars.
Dragon can bring as lots of as 7 astronauts, and it had a crewed flight bring astronauts Doug Hurley and Robert Behnken to the ISS in 2020. Musk looked for to reduce the expenditure of spaceflight by establishing a totally reusable rocket that might take off and go back to the pad it launched from. Starting in 2012, Space, X's Grasshopper rocket made a number of brief flights to check such technology. In addition to being CEO of Space, X, Musk was also primary designer in building the Falcon rockets, Dragon, and Grasshopper. Get a Britannica Premium subscription and gain access to special material. Subscribe Now Musk had actually long had an interest in the possibilities of electric cars and trucks, and in 2004 he turned into one of the major funders of Tesla Motors (later on relabelled Tesla), an electrical cars and truck company established by entrepreneurs Martin Eberhard and Marc Tarpenning.