Video released by spacecraft maker Space, X commemorating its Dragon pill, which on May 25, 2012, became the first industrial 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, Buddy and formed Space, X, maker of launch cars and spacecraft. He was likewise among the very first substantial investors in, as well as president of, the electrical car producer Tesla. Top Questions, Elon Musk was born on June 28, 1971. Elon Musk cofounded the electronic payment company Pay, Pal and founded the spacecraft business Space, X.
Elon Musk established Area, X, a company that makes rockets and spacecraft. He became the ceo and a significant funder of Tesla, that makes electrical cars. Musk was born to a South African father and a Canadian mother. He showed an early skill for computers and entrepreneurship. At age 12 he created a computer game and sold it to a computer system magazine. In 1988, after getting a Canadian passport, Musk left South Africa because he was unwilling to support apartheid through required military service and since he sought the greater economic opportunities 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 received bachelor's degrees in physics and economics in 1997.
In 1995 he established Zip2, a business that offered maps and business directory sites to online newspapers. In 1999 Zip2 was purchased by the computer system producer Compaq for $307 million, and Musk then established an online monetary services company, X.com, which later on ended up being Pay, Friend, which focused on transferring cash online. The online auction e, Bay purchased Pay, Buddy 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 species. However, he was dissatisfied with the great cost of rocket launchers. In 2002 he founded Area Exploration Technologies (Space, X) to make more cost effective rockets.
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A third rocket, the Falcon Heavy (initially released in 2018), was developed to carry 117,000 pounds (53,000 kg) to orbit, almost twice as much as its biggest rival, the Boeing Company's Delta IV Heavy, for one-third the expense. Area, X has actually revealed 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 designed for providing quick transport in between cities in the world and constructing bases on the Moon and Mars.
Dragon can bring as numerous as seven astronauts, and it had a crewed flight bring astronauts Doug Hurley and Robert Behnken to the ISS in 2020. Musk sought to minimize the cost of spaceflight by establishing a completely recyclable rocket that could lift off and return to the pad it released from. Starting in 2012, Area, X's Grasshopper rocket made numerous short flights to check such innovation. In addition to being CEO of Space, X, Musk was also primary designer in constructing the Falcon rockets, Dragon, and Grasshopper. Get a Britannica Premium subscription and gain access to special material. Subscribe Now Musk had actually long been interested in the possibilities of electric cars, and in 2004 he turned into one of the significant funders of Tesla Motors (later relabelled Tesla), an electric automobile business founded by business owners Martin Eberhard and Marc Tarpenning.