Video launched by spacecraft maker Space, X commemorating its Dragon capsule, which on May 25, 2012, became the first business spacecraft to dock with the International Area Station. Space, 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 cars and spacecraft. He was likewise one of the very first significant investors in, as well as president of, the electric car manufacturer Tesla. Top Concerns, Elon Musk was born on June 28, 1971. Elon Musk cofounded the electronic payment company Pay, Buddy and founded the spacecraft company Area, X.
Elon Musk established Space, X, a business that makes rockets and spacecraft. He ended up being the primary executive officer and a major funder of Tesla, which makes electrical cars. Musk was born to a South African father and a Canadian mother. He showed an early talent for computer systems and entrepreneurship. At age 12 he created a computer game and sold it to a computer system magazine. In 1988, after acquiring a Canadian passport, Musk left South Africa since he hesitated to support apartheid through required military service and because he looked for the greater economic chances offered in the United States. Musk attended 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 established Zip2, a business that supplied maps and company 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 became Pay, Pal, which specialized in moving money online. The online auction e, Bay bought Pay, Pal in 2002 for $1. 5 billion. Musk was long convinced that for life to make it through, humanity has to end up being a multiplanet types. However, he was dissatisfied 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 (first introduced in 2018), was developed 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 successor to the Falcon 9 and the Falcon Heavy: the Super Heavy, Starship system. The Super Heavy first stage would can lifting 100,000 kg (220,000 pounds) to low Earth orbit. The payload would be the Starship, a spacecraft created for providing quick transport in between cities in the world and developing bases on the Moon and Mars.
Dragon can carry 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 completely multiple-use rocket that could take off and go back to the pad it released from. Beginning in 2012, Area, X's Grasshopper rocket made numerous short flights to check such innovation. In addition to being CEO of Area, X, Musk was also chief designer in developing the Falcon rockets, Dragon, and Insect. Get a Britannica Premium membership and gain access to exclusive material. Subscribe Now Musk had actually long had an interest in the possibilities of electrical cars, and in 2004 he turned into one of the significant funders of Tesla Motors (later on renamed Tesla), an electrical cars and truck business established by entrepreneurs Martin Eberhard and Marc Tarpenning.