Video released by spacecraft maker Space, X commemorating its Dragon pill, which on May 25, 2012, ended up being 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 business owner who cofounded the electronic-payment company Pay, Buddy and formed Area, X, maker of launch lorries and spacecraft. He was also among the very first considerable financiers in, as well as ceo of, the electrical vehicle manufacturer Tesla. Top Concerns, Elon Musk was born upon June 28, 1971. Elon Musk cofounded the electronic payment company Pay, Buddy and founded the spacecraft business Area, X.
Elon Musk established Area, X, a company that makes rockets and spacecraft. He ended up being the ceo and a major funder of Tesla, which makes electrical cars and trucks. Musk was born to a South African daddy and a Canadian mother. He showed an early talent for computer systems and entrepreneurship. At age 12 he developed a computer game and sold it to a computer system publication. In 1988, after getting a Canadian passport, Musk left South Africa because he hesitated to support apartheid through mandatory military service and since he looked for the higher economic chances readily available in the United States. Musk went to 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 company that provided maps and organization directory sites to online papers. In 1999 Zip2 was purchased by the computer manufacturer Compaq for $307 million, and Musk then established an online monetary services company, X.com, which later on ended up being Pay, Friend, which specialized in moving money online. The online auction e, Bay purchased Pay, Friend in 2002 for $1. 5 billion. Musk was long persuaded that for life to make it through, mankind needs to end up being a multiplanet species. Nevertheless, he was dissatisfied with the excellent expenditure of rocket launchers. In 2002 he established Area Exploration Technologies (Space, X) to make more inexpensive rockets.
A 3rd rocket, the Falcon Heavy (initially launched in 2018), was designed to bring 117,000 pounds (53,000 kg) to orbit, nearly two times as much as its biggest competitor, the Boeing Business's Delta IV Heavy, for one-third the cost. 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 developed for offering fast transportation between cities on Earth and building bases on the Moon and Mars.
Dragon can bring as many as 7 astronauts, and it had a crewed flight bring astronauts Doug Hurley and Robert Behnken to the ISS in 2020. Musk sought to lower the expense of spaceflight by developing a fully recyclable rocket that might take off and go back to the pad it released from. Starting in 2012, Area, X's Insect rocket made several brief flights to evaluate such technology. In addition to being CEO of Area, X, Musk was also chief designer in constructing the Falcon rockets, Dragon, and Grasshopper. Get a Britannica Premium subscription and gain access to unique content. Subscribe Now Musk had long had an interest in the possibilities of electrical automobiles, and in 2004 he turned into one of the major funders of Tesla Motors (later renamed Tesla), an electric vehicle business established by business owners Martin Eberhard and Marc Tarpenning.