Video released by spacecraft maker Space, X celebrating its Dragon pill, 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 firm Pay, Buddy and formed Space, X, maker of launch lorries and spacecraft. He was also among the very first substantial investors in, as well as chief executive officer of, the electric cars and truck maker Tesla. Top Concerns, Elon Musk was born on June 28, 1971. Elon Musk cofounded the electronic payment firm Pay, Friend and established the spacecraft company Space, X.
Elon Musk founded Space, X, a business that makes rockets and spacecraft. He became the chief executive officer and a major funder of Tesla, which makes electric automobiles. Musk was born to a South African father and a Canadian mom. He showed an early skill for computers and entrepreneurship. At age 12 he developed a video game and sold it to a computer magazine. In 1988, after obtaining a Canadian passport, Musk left South Africa because he hesitated to support apartheid through compulsory military service and due to the fact that he looked for the higher financial chances available 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 company directories to online papers. In 1999 Zip2 was purchased by the computer system maker Compaq for $307 million, and Musk then established an online financial services company, X.com, which later on became Pay, Buddy, which focused on transferring cash online. The online auction e, Bay purchased Pay, Pal in 2002 for $1. 5 billion. Musk was long persuaded that for life to survive, humanity needs to become a multiplanet species. However, he was dissatisfied with the excellent cost of rocket launchers. In 2002 he founded Area Expedition Technologies (Space, X) to make more affordable rockets.
A 3rd rocket, the Falcon Heavy (first released in 2018), was created to carry 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 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 can raising 100,000 kg (220,000 pounds) to low Earth orbit. The payload would be the Starship, a spacecraft developed for offering fast transport between cities on Earth and building bases on the Moon and Mars.
Dragon can carry as lots of 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 decrease the cost of spaceflight by developing a completely reusable rocket that could raise off and go back to the pad it introduced from. Beginning in 2012, Area, X's Grasshopper rocket made several short flights to check such technology. In addition to being CEO of Area, X, Musk was likewise primary designer in developing the Falcon rockets, Dragon, and Insect. Get a Britannica Premium membership and gain access to special material. Subscribe Now Musk had long had an interest in the possibilities of electrical cars, and in 2004 he turned into one of the significant funders of Tesla Motors (later relabelled Tesla), an electrical vehicle company established by business owners Martin Eberhard and Marc Tarpenning.