Elon Musk: The Story Of A Maverick - Interesting Engineering

Video launched by spacecraft maker Area, X celebrating 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 Space, X, maker of launch vehicles and spacecraft. He was likewise among the first significant financiers in, as well as chief executive officer of, the electrical vehicle maker Tesla. Top Concerns, Elon Musk was born upon June 28, 1971. Elon Musk cofounded the electronic payment company Pay, Friend and established the spacecraft company Space, X.

Elon Musk established Area, X, a business that makes rockets and spacecraft. He became the chief executive officer and a major funder of Tesla, that makes electrical cars and trucks. Musk was born to a South African dad and a Canadian mom. He showed an early talent for computer systems and entrepreneurship. At age 12 he developed a computer game and offered it to a computer system publication. In 1988, after acquiring a Canadian passport, Musk left South Africa since he was reluctant to support apartheid through obligatory military service and because he looked for the greater financial chances offered 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 established Zip2, a business that supplied maps and business directory sites to online newspapers. In 1999 Zip2 was purchased by the computer producer Compaq for $307 million, and Musk then founded an online financial services company, X.com, which later became Pay, Friend, which concentrated on transferring money online. The online auction e, Bay purchased Pay, Buddy in 2002 for $1. 5 billion. Musk was long persuaded that for life to survive, mankind has to end up being a multiplanet species. However, he was disappointed with the great expenditure of rocket launchers. In 2002 he founded Area Expedition Technologies (Area, X) to make more economical rockets.

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A 3rd rocket, the Falcon Heavy (first introduced in 2018), was developed to bring 117,000 pounds (53,000 kg) to orbit, nearly twice as much as its largest competitor, the Boeing Company's Delta IV Heavy, for one-third the cost. Space, X has actually announced the successor to the Falcon 9 and the Falcon Heavy: the Super Heavy, Starship system. The Super Heavy very first stage would can raising 100,000 kg (220,000 pounds) to low Earth orbit. The payload would be the Starship, a spacecraft developed for supplying quick transportation between cities in the world and constructing 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 looked for to minimize the cost of spaceflight by establishing a fully multiple-use rocket that might take off and return to the pad it launched from. Starting in 2012, Area, X's Grasshopper rocket made numerous short flights to evaluate such innovation. 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 actually long been interested in the possibilities of electric cars and trucks, and in 2004 he ended up being one of the significant funders of Tesla Motors (later renamed Tesla), an electric cars and truck company founded by entrepreneurs Martin Eberhard and Marc Tarpenning.