Video released by spacecraft maker Area, X celebrating its Dragon pill, which on May 25, 2012, became 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 entrepreneur who cofounded the electronic-payment company Pay, Friend and formed Area, X, maker of launch automobiles and spacecraft. He was likewise one of the first significant financiers in, in addition to ceo of, the electrical vehicle producer Tesla. Leading Questions, Elon Musk was born on June 28, 1971. Elon Musk cofounded the electronic payment firm Pay, Pal and established the spacecraft company Area, X.
Elon Musk founded Area, X, a company that makes rockets and spacecraft. He ended up being the chief executive officer and a significant funder of Tesla, that makes electrical automobiles. Musk was born to a South African dad and a Canadian mom. He displayed an early skill for computer systems and entrepreneurship. At age 12 he developed a computer game and offered it to a computer system magazine. In 1988, after getting a Canadian passport, Musk left South Africa since he hesitated to support apartheid through mandatory military service and because he looked for the higher financial opportunities 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 received bachelor's degrees in physics and economics in 1997.
In 1995 he established Zip2, a business that supplied maps and company directory sites to online papers. In 1999 Zip2 was purchased by the computer system maker Compaq for $307 million, and Musk then established an online financial services business, X.com, which later ended up being Pay, Buddy, which specialized in moving money online. The online auction e, Bay bought Pay, Pal in 2002 for $1. 5 billion. Musk was long persuaded that for life to endure, humankind has to become a multiplanet species. However, he was disappointed with the excellent expenditure of rocket launchers. In 2002 he established Area Expedition Technologies (Space, X) to make more affordable rockets.
A 3rd rocket, the Falcon Heavy (first introduced in 2018), was created to bring 117,000 pounds (53,000 kg) to orbit, nearly two times as much as its largest competitor, the Boeing Business's Delta IV Heavy, for one-third the expense. Area, X has actually announced the follower to the Falcon 9 and the Falcon Heavy: the Super Heavy, Starship system. The Super Heavy very first phase would can lifting 100,000 kg (220,000 pounds) to low Earth orbit. The payload would be the Starship, a spacecraft designed for supplying fast transportation in between cities in the world and developing bases on the Moon and Mars.
Dragon can bring as lots of as seven astronauts, and it had a crewed flight carrying astronauts Doug Hurley and Robert Behnken to the ISS in 2020. Musk looked for to lower the expense of spaceflight by establishing a completely multiple-use rocket that might lift off and go back to the pad it released from. Beginning in 2012, Space, X's Insect rocket made numerous short flights to evaluate such innovation. In addition to being CEO of Space, X, Musk was also chief designer in developing the Falcon rockets, Dragon, and Grasshopper. Get a Britannica Premium membership and gain access to exclusive material. Subscribe Now Musk had long had an interest in the possibilities of electric vehicles, and in 2004 he became one of the major funders of Tesla Motors (later on relabelled Tesla), an electrical cars and truck company established by business owners Martin Eberhard and Marc Tarpenning.