Video launched by spacecraft maker Space, X commemorating its Dragon capsule, which on May 25, 2012, became the first business spacecraft to dock with the International Space Station. Space, X (A Britannica Publishing Partner), (born June 28, 1971, Pretoria, South Africa), South African-born American entrepreneur who cofounded the electronic-payment company Pay, Pal and formed Area, X, maker of launch vehicles and spacecraft. He was also among the very first considerable financiers in, as well as president of, the electric cars and truck producer Tesla. Leading Questions, Elon Musk was born on June 28, 1971. Elon Musk cofounded the electronic payment company Pay, Pal and established the spacecraft company Area, X.
Elon Musk founded Area, X, a company that makes rockets and spacecraft. He ended up being the president and a significant funder of Tesla, that makes electric vehicles. Musk was born to a South African daddy and a Canadian mother. He showed an early skill for computers and entrepreneurship. At age 12 he produced a video game and offered it to a computer magazine. In 1988, after getting a Canadian passport, Musk left South Africa due to the fact that he hesitated to support apartheid through compulsory military service and due to the fact that he looked for the higher economic opportunities readily available in the United States. Musk attended 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 organization directories to online papers. In 1999 Zip2 was bought by the computer maker Compaq for $307 million, and Musk then founded an online financial services company, X.com, which later on ended up being Pay, Friend, which focused on transferring money online. The online auction e, Bay purchased Pay, Pal in 2002 for $1. 5 billion. Musk was long convinced that for life to make it through, humanity needs to end up being a multiplanet types. However, he was dissatisfied with the terrific expenditure of rocket launchers. In 2002 he founded Area Exploration Technologies (Space, X) to make more inexpensive rockets.
A 3rd rocket, the Falcon Heavy (initially introduced in 2018), was developed to carry 117,000 pounds (53,000 kg) to orbit, almost two times as much as its largest rival, the Boeing Business's Delta IV Heavy, for one-third the expense. Space, X has actually revealed the follower to the Falcon 9 and the Falcon Heavy: the Super Heavy, Starship system. The Super Heavy 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 providing fast transportation between cities in the world and developing bases on the Moon and Mars.
Dragon can carry 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 decrease the cost of spaceflight by establishing a totally multiple-use rocket that might take off and return to the pad it introduced from. Beginning in 2012, Space, X's Grasshopper rocket made numerous brief flights to evaluate such technology. In addition to being CEO of Space, X, Musk was likewise primary designer in building the Falcon rockets, Dragon, and Insect. Get a Britannica Premium subscription and gain access to exclusive content. Subscribe Now Musk had long been interested in the possibilities of electrical automobiles, and in 2004 he turned into one of the major funders of Tesla Motors (later on relabelled Tesla), an electric cars and truck company established by business owners Martin Eberhard and Marc Tarpenning.