Video launched by spacecraft maker Space, X commemorating its Dragon pill, which on May 25, 2012, became the first business 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 firm Pay, Buddy and formed Area, X, maker of launch automobiles and spacecraft. He was also among the very first considerable investors in, along with primary executive officer of, the electrical vehicle producer Tesla. Top Concerns, Elon Musk was born on June 28, 1971. Elon Musk cofounded the electronic payment company Pay, Pal and founded the spacecraft company Area, X.
Elon Musk founded Area, X, a business that makes rockets and spacecraft. He became the president and a significant funder of Tesla, which makes electrical cars and trucks. Musk was born to a South African daddy and a Canadian mom. He showed an early talent for computers and entrepreneurship. At age 12 he developed a computer game and offered it to a computer publication. In 1988, after acquiring a Canadian passport, Musk left South Africa due to the fact that he was unwilling to support apartheid through compulsory military service and due to the fact that he sought the greater economic opportunities available in the United States. Musk went to 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 service directories to online papers. In 1999 Zip2 was bought by the computer maker Compaq for $307 million, and View website Musk then founded an online financial services business, X.com, which later ended up being Pay, Buddy, which concentrated on moving cash online. The online auction e, Bay purchased Pay, Friend in 2002 for $1. 5 billion. Musk was long convinced that for life to survive, humanity needs to become a multiplanet species. Nevertheless, he was disappointed with the great expenditure of rocket launchers. In 2002 he established Space Expedition Technologies (Area, X) to make more cost effective rockets.
A third rocket, the Falcon Heavy (initially introduced in 2018), was Click here designed to carry 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 cost. Space, 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 be capable of lifting 100,000 kg (220,000 pounds) to low Earth orbit. The payload would be the Starship, a spacecraft designed for offering quick transportation between cities on Earth and building bases on the Moon and Mars.
Dragon can bring as many 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 establishing a fully multiple-use rocket that might take off and go back to the pad it launched from. Beginning in 2012, Space, X's Insect rocket made numerous short flights to test such technology. In addition to being CEO of Area, X, Musk was likewise primary designer in constructing the Falcon rockets, Dragon, and Insect. Get a Britannica Premium subscription and gain access to special material. Subscribe Now Musk had actually long been interested in the possibilities of electrical cars, and in 2004 he turned into one of the significant funders of Tesla Motors (later renamed Tesla), an electric vehicle business founded by business owners Martin Eberhard and Marc Tarpenning.