Video released by spacecraft maker Area, X commemorating its Dragon capsule, which on May 25, 2012, became the first commercial spacecraft to dock with the International Area 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, Friend and formed Area, X, maker of launch cars and spacecraft. He was likewise one of the first substantial investors in, in addition to chief executive officer of, the electric vehicle manufacturer Tesla. Top Questions, Elon Musk was born on June 28, 1971. Elon Musk cofounded the electronic payment company Pay, Buddy and founded the spacecraft business Space, X.
Elon Musk established Area, X, a business that makes rockets and spacecraft. He became the primary executive officer and a significant funder of Tesla, which makes electrical cars. Musk was born to a South African daddy and a Canadian mother. He showed an early skill for computer systems and entrepreneurship. At age 12 he produced a computer game and offered it to a computer system magazine. In 1988, after getting a Canadian passport, Musk left South Africa due to the fact that he hesitated to support apartheid through obligatory military service and because 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 got bachelor's degrees in physics and economics in 1997.
In 1995 he founded Zip2, a business that supplied maps and business directories to online papers. In 1999 Zip2 was purchased by the computer system producer Compaq for $307 million, and Musk then founded an online financial services company, X.com, which later ended up being Pay, Buddy, which concentrated on transferring cash online. The online auction e, Bay purchased Pay, Buddy in 2002 for $1. 5 billion. Musk was long convinced that for life to endure, mankind has to end up being a multiplanet types. Nevertheless, he was disappointed with the terrific cost of rocket launchers. In 2002 he founded Space Exploration Technologies (Space, X) to make more economical rockets.
A 3rd rocket, the Falcon Heavy (initially introduced in 2018), was developed to carry 117,000 pounds (53,000 kg) to orbit, almost twice as much as its largest rival, the Boeing Company's Delta IV Heavy, for one-third the expense. Area, 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 can lifting 100,000 kg (220,000 pounds) to low Earth orbit. The payload would be the Starship, a spacecraft developed for providing fast transport in between cities on Earth and constructing bases on the Moon and Mars.
Dragon can bring as lots of as 7 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 expenditure of spaceflight by developing a totally reusable rocket that might take off and return to the pad it released from. Starting in 2012, Space, X's Insect rocket made several short flights to test such technology. In addition to being CEO of Space, X, Musk was likewise primary designer in constructing the Falcon rockets, Dragon, and Insect. Get a Britannica Premium membership and gain access to exclusive material. Subscribe Now Musk had actually long been interested in the possibilities of electric cars, and in 2004 he ended up being one of the major funders of Tesla Motors (later on relabelled Tesla), an electric cars and truck company established by entrepreneurs Martin Eberhard and Marc Tarpenning.