Video launched by spacecraft maker Space, X commemorating its Dragon capsule, which on May 25, 2012, became the first industrial 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 company Pay, Friend and formed Area, X, maker of launch vehicles and spacecraft. He was likewise among the very first considerable investors in, along with primary executive officer of, the electric automobile manufacturer Tesla. Top Questions, Elon Musk was born upon June 28, 1971. Elon Musk cofounded the electronic payment firm Pay, Friend and founded the spacecraft company Area, X.
Elon Musk founded Space, X, a company that makes rockets and spacecraft. He ended up being the ceo and a major funder of Tesla, that makes electric cars and trucks. Musk was born to a South African father and a Canadian mother. He showed an early skill for computer systems and entrepreneurship. At age 12 he produced a computer game and offered it to a computer system magazine. In 1988, after acquiring a Canadian passport, Musk left South Africa due to the fact that he hesitated to support apartheid through required military service and because he looked for the greater financial 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 supplied maps and business directories to online papers. In 1999 Zip2 was purchased by the computer producer Compaq for $307 million, and Musk then established an online monetary services company, X.com, which later ended up being Pay, Buddy, which focused on transferring money online. The online auction e, Bay bought Pay, Friend in 2002 for $1. 5 billion. Musk was long convinced that for life to survive, humankind has to end up being a multiplanet types. Nevertheless, he was disappointed with the great expenditure of rocket launchers. In 2002 he founded Space Expedition Technologies (Space, X) to make more inexpensive rockets.
A third rocket, the Falcon Heavy (initially 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 revealed the successor to the Falcon 9 and the Falcon Heavy: the Super Heavy, Starship system. The Super Heavy first phase would can lifting 100,000 kg (220,000 pounds) to low Earth orbit. The payload would be the Starship, a spacecraft created for offering fast transportation in between cities in the world and building 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 minimize the expense of spaceflight by developing a fully multiple-use rocket that might take off and return to the pad it introduced from. Starting in 2012, Space, X's Insect rocket made numerous brief flights to evaluate such technology. In addition to being CEO of Area, X, Musk was likewise primary designer in developing the Falcon rockets, Dragon, and Grasshopper. Get a Britannica Premium membership and gain access to unique material. Subscribe Now Musk had long been interested in the possibilities of electric automobiles, and in 2004 he turned into one of the significant funders of Tesla Motors (later on renamed Tesla), an electric automobile business established by entrepreneurs Martin Eberhard and Marc Tarpenning.