Video launched by spacecraft maker Space, X commemorating its Dragon capsule, which on May 25, 2012, ended up being the first industrial spacecraft to dock with the International Area 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 Space, X, maker of launch cars and spacecraft. He was likewise one of the very first considerable investors in, in addition to ceo of, the electric vehicle producer Tesla. Leading Concerns, Elon Musk was born upon June 28, 1971. Elon Musk cofounded the electronic payment firm Pay, Pal and established the spacecraft company Space, X.
Elon Musk established Space, X, a business that makes rockets and spacecraft. He ended up being the president and a major funder of Tesla, which makes electrical cars. Musk was born to a South African father and a Canadian mother. He displayed an early skill for computers and entrepreneurship. At age 12 he created a computer game and offered it to a computer magazine. In 1988, after getting a Canadian passport, Musk left South Africa since he was reluctant to support apartheid through required military service and because he looked for the higher economic opportunities readily available in the United States. Musk participated in 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 company that provided maps and business directory sites to online papers. In 1999 Zip2 was purchased by the computer maker Compaq for $307 million, and Musk then founded an online financial services business, X.com, which later ended up being Pay, Buddy, which focused on transferring money online. The online auction e, Bay bought Pay, Pal in 2002 for $1. 5 billion. Musk was long convinced that for life to survive, mankind has to become a multiplanet species. However, he was dissatisfied with the great cost of rocket launchers. In 2002 he founded Space Expedition Technologies (Area, X) to make more affordable rockets.
A third rocket, the Falcon Heavy (initially released 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 Company's Delta IV Heavy, for one-third the expense. Area, X has actually announced 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 lifting 100,000 kg (220,000 pounds) to low Earth orbit. The payload would be the Starship, a spacecraft designed for supplying fast transport between cities on Earth and developing bases on the Moon and Mars.
Dragon can bring as many as seven 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 cost of spaceflight by establishing a completely multiple-use rocket that could take off and go back to the pad it released from. Starting in 2012, Area, X's Grasshopper rocket made a number of short flights to evaluate such technology. In addition to being CEO of Space, X, Musk was likewise chief designer in building 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 ended up being one of the major funders of Tesla Motors (later renamed Tesla), an electrical vehicle company established by business owners Martin Eberhard and Marc Tarpenning.