Video released 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 Space Station. Area, X (A Britannica Publishing Partner), (born June 28, 1971, Pretoria, South Africa), South African-born American entrepreneur who cofounded the electronic-payment firm Pay, Pal and formed Area, X, maker of launch automobiles and spacecraft. He was also one of the very first considerable investors in, in addition to primary executive officer of, the electric cars and truck producer Tesla. Top Questions, Elon Musk was born on June 28, 1971. Elon Musk cofounded the electronic payment firm Pay, Friend and established the spacecraft company Area, X.
Elon Musk founded Area, X, a business that makes rockets and spacecraft. He ended up being the president and a significant funder of Tesla, that makes electric automobiles. Musk was born to a South African dad and a Canadian mother. He showed an early talent for computers and entrepreneurship. At age 12 he created a computer game and offered it to a computer system magazine. In 1988, after getting a Canadian passport, Musk left South Africa since he was unwilling to support apartheid through obligatory military service and due to the fact that he looked for the greater economic opportunities readily available in the United States. Musk participated in Queen's University in Kingston, Ontario, and in 1992 he transferred 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 service directory sites to online papers. In 1999 Zip2 was bought by the computer system producer Compaq for $307 million, and Musk then established an online monetary services company, X.com, which later on became Pay, Buddy, which concentrated on transferring money online. The online auction e, Bay purchased Pay, Friend in 2002 for $1. 5 billion. Musk was long convinced that for life to endure, mankind needs to become a multiplanet species. However, he was disappointed with the terrific expense of rocket launchers. In 2002 he established Area Exploration Technologies (Space, X) to make more budget friendly rockets.
A third rocket, the Falcon Heavy (initially launched in 2018), was created to carry 117,000 pounds (53,000 kg) to orbit, nearly two times as much as its biggest rival, the Boeing Company's Delta IV Heavy, for one-third the cost. Area, X has actually revealed 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 designed for offering fast transport between cities on Earth and constructing bases on the Moon and Mars.
Dragon can bring as many as seven astronauts, and it had a crewed flight bring astronauts Doug Hurley and Robert Behnken to the ISS in 2020. Musk sought to lower the cost of spaceflight by developing a fully multiple-use rocket that could lift off and go back to the pad it launched from. Beginning in 2012, Space, X's Grasshopper rocket made numerous short flights to evaluate such innovation. In addition to being CEO of Space, X, Musk was likewise primary designer in constructing the Falcon rockets, Dragon, and Grasshopper. Get a Britannica Premium subscription and gain access to exclusive content. Subscribe Now Musk had long had an interest in the possibilities of electrical vehicles, and in 2004 he turned into one of the significant funders of Tesla Motors (later renamed Tesla), an electric vehicle company established by entrepreneurs Martin Eberhard and Marc Tarpenning.