Video launched by spacecraft maker Space, X celebrating its Dragon pill, which on May 25, 2012, became the first commercial spacecraft to dock with the International Space Station. Space, X (A Britannica Publishing Partner), (born June 28, 1971, Pretoria, South Africa), South African-born American business owner who cofounded the electronic-payment firm Pay, Buddy and formed Space, X, maker of launch vehicles and spacecraft. He was likewise among the very first significant investors in, along with chief executive officer of, the electrical car maker Tesla. Top Questions, Elon Musk was born upon June 28, 1971. Elon Musk cofounded the electronic payment company Pay, Pal and founded the spacecraft company Area, X.
Elon Musk established Area, X, a business that makes rockets and spacecraft. He ended up being the ceo and a major funder of Tesla, that makes electrical cars. Musk was born to a South African father and a Canadian mother. He displayed an early talent for computers and entrepreneurship. At age 12 he produced a video game and sold it to a computer magazine. In 1988, after acquiring a Canadian passport, Musk left South Africa since he was unwilling to support apartheid through obligatory military service and since he sought the higher economic 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 company that provided maps and organization directories to online papers. In 1999 Zip2 was bought by the computer maker Compaq for $307 million, and Musk then founded an online monetary services company, X.com, which later ended up being Pay, Friend, which focused on transferring cash 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 become a multiplanet species. However, he was disappointed with the fantastic cost of rocket launchers. In 2002 he established Space Exploration Technologies (Space, X) to make more budget-friendly rockets.
A 3rd rocket, the Falcon Heavy (first introduced in 2018), was designed to bring 117,000 pounds (53,000 kg) to orbit, nearly twice as much as its biggest competitor, the Boeing Business's Delta IV Heavy, for one-third the expense. Space, X has actually revealed the follower to the Falcon 9 and the Falcon Heavy: the Super Heavy, Starship system. The Super Heavy very first stage would be capable of raising 100,000 kg (220,000 pounds) to low Earth orbit. The payload would be the Starship, a spacecraft designed for offering fast transport in between cities on Earth and developing bases on the Moon and Mars.
Dragon can carry 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 expenditure of spaceflight by developing a fully multiple-use rocket that could raise off and go back to the pad it released from. Beginning in 2012, Space, X's Insect rocket made numerous brief 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 unique material. Subscribe Now Musk had actually long had an interest in the possibilities of electric cars, and in 2004 he ended up being one of the significant funders of Tesla Motors (later renamed Tesla), an electrical vehicle business established by business owners Martin Eberhard and Marc Tarpenning.
