Video launched by spacecraft maker Space, X commemorating its Dragon capsule, which on May 25, 2012, ended up being the first commercial spacecraft to dock with the International Spaceport 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, Buddy and formed Space, X, maker of launch cars and spacecraft. He was also one of the very first considerable financiers in, along with president of, the electrical vehicle manufacturer Tesla. Top Concerns, Elon Musk was born on June 28, 1971. Elon Musk cofounded the electronic payment firm Pay, Friend and founded the spacecraft business Area, X.
Elon Musk founded Area, X, a company that makes rockets and spacecraft. He became the president and a significant funder of Tesla, which makes electric cars and trucks. Musk was born to a South African dad and a Canadian mother. He showed an early skill for computers and entrepreneurship. At age 12 he produced a video game and sold it to a computer system publication. 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 sought the higher economic chances 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 got bachelor's degrees in physics and economics in 1997.
In 1995 he founded Zip2, a business that provided maps read more and service directory sites to online papers. In 1999 Zip2 was purchased by the computer system manufacturer Compaq for $307 million, and Musk then established an online financial services company, X.com, which later on became Pay, Buddy, which concentrated on moving money online. The online auction e, Bay purchased Pay, Friend in 2002 for $1. 5 billion. Musk was long convinced that for life to make it through, humanity has to become a multiplanet types. Nevertheless, he was dissatisfied with the great cost of rocket launchers. In 2002 he established Space Expedition Technologies (Space, X) to make more cost effective rockets.
A third rocket, the Falcon Heavy (first released in 2018), was created to bring 117,000 pounds (53,000 kg) to orbit, almost two times as much as its biggest rival, the Boeing Business's Delta IV Heavy, for one-third the expense. Area, X has actually announced the successor to the Falcon 9 and the Falcon Heavy: the Super Heavy, Starship system. The Super Heavy very first phase 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 in the world and constructing bases on the Moon and Mars.
Dragon can bring as numerous as 7 astronauts, and it had a crewed flight carrying astronauts Doug Hurley and Robert Behnken to the ISS in 2020. Musk looked for to minimize the cost of spaceflight by establishing a fully recyclable rocket that might take off and return to the pad it introduced from. Starting in 2012, Area, X's Grasshopper rocket made numerous brief flights to Additional reading check such innovation. In addition to being CEO of Area, X, Musk was also chief designer in building the Falcon rockets, Dragon, and Grasshopper. Get a Britannica Premium membership and gain access to exclusive material. Subscribe Now Musk had long been interested in the possibilities of electrical cars, and in 2004 he became one of the significant funders of Tesla Motors (later relabelled Tesla), an electrical vehicle company founded by business owners Martin Eberhard and Marc Tarpenning.