Video released by spacecraft maker Space, X commemorating its Dragon pill, which on May 25, 2012, ended up being the very first industrial 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 firm Pay, Friend and formed Area, X, maker of launch vehicles and spacecraft. He was also among the very first considerable financiers in, along with primary executive officer of, the electric vehicle manufacturer Tesla. Top Questions, Elon Musk was born upon June 28, 1971. Elon Musk cofounded the electronic payment firm Pay, Buddy and established the spacecraft business Area, X.
Elon Musk founded Area, X, a business that makes rockets and spacecraft. He became the ceo and a significant funder of Tesla, which makes electrical cars and trucks. Musk was born to a South African dad and a Canadian mom. He displayed an early talent for computer systems and entrepreneurship. At age 12 he produced a video game and sold it to a computer system magazine. In 1988, after acquiring a Canadian passport, Musk left South Africa since he hesitated to support apartheid through compulsory military service and since he sought the higher financial opportunities 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 got bachelor's degrees in physics and economics in 1997.
In 1995 he established Zip2, a business that offered maps and service directory sites to online papers. In 1999 Zip2 was purchased by the computer maker Compaq for $307 million, and Musk then founded an online monetary services business, X.com, which later became Pay, Friend, which focused on transferring money online. The online auction e, Bay bought Pay, Pal in 2002 for $1. 5 billion. Musk was long convinced that for life to make it through, humankind has to become a multiplanet types. However, he was dissatisfied with the excellent expenditure of rocket launchers. In 2002 he established Space Exploration Technologies (Space, X) to make more cost effective rockets.
A 3rd rocket, the Falcon Heavy (initially released in 2018), was developed to bring 117,000 pounds (53,000 kg) to orbit, almost twice as much as its biggest rival, the Boeing Business's Delta IV Heavy, for one-third the cost. Area, X has announced the successor to the Falcon 9 and the Falcon Heavy: the Super Heavy, Starship system. The Super Heavy first phase 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 transportation between cities on Earth and constructing bases on the Moon and Mars.
Dragon can bring as numerous as 7 astronauts, and it had a crewed flight bring astronauts Doug Hurley and Robert Behnken to the ISS in 2020. Musk sought to reduce the expenditure of spaceflight by developing a totally recyclable rocket that could take off and go back to the pad it launched from. Starting in 2012, Space, X's Insect rocket made a number of short flights to evaluate such technology. In addition to being CEO of Area, X, Musk was likewise chief designer in constructing the Falcon rockets, Dragon, and Grasshopper. Get a Britannica Premium membership and gain access to special material. Subscribe Now Musk had actually long been interested in the possibilities of electric automobiles, and in 2004 he turned into one of the significant funders of Tesla Motors (later on relabelled Tesla), an electric automobile business founded by business owners Martin Eberhard and Marc Tarpenning.