Video launched by spacecraft maker Space, X commemorating its Dragon pill, which on May 25, 2012, ended up being 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 business owner who cofounded the electronic-payment company Pay, Pal and formed Space, X, maker of launch cars and spacecraft. He was likewise among the first substantial investors in, along with president of, the electric vehicle manufacturer Tesla. Leading Concerns, Elon Musk was born upon June 28, 1971. Elon Musk cofounded the electronic payment company Pay, Friend and founded the spacecraft business Area, X.
Elon Musk founded Space, X, a business that makes rockets and spacecraft. He ended up being the president and a significant funder of Tesla, which makes electrical vehicles. Musk was born to a South African daddy and a Canadian mom. He showed an early skill for computers and entrepreneurship. At age 12 he created a computer game and offered it to a computer magazine. In 1988, after acquiring a Canadian passport, Musk left South Africa since he was reluctant to support apartheid through compulsory military service and due to the fact that he looked for the greater financial chances readily 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 got bachelor's degrees in physics and economics in 1997.
In 1995 he established Zip2, a company that provided maps and organization directories to online newspapers. In 1999 Zip2 was bought by the computer manufacturer Compaq for $307 million, and Musk then founded an online financial services business, X.com, which later ended up being Pay, Pal, which focused on moving cash online. The online auction e, Bay purchased Pay, Friend in 2002 for $1. 5 billion. Musk was long convinced that for life to make it through, humankind has to end up being a multiplanet species. Nevertheless, he was disappointed with the terrific expenditure of rocket launchers. In 2002 he established Space Expedition Technologies (Space, X) to make more budget friendly rockets.
A third rocket, the Falcon Heavy (initially released in 2018), was created to carry 117,000 pounds (53,000 kg) to orbit, almost twice as much as its largest competitor, the Boeing Company's Delta IV Heavy, for one-third the expense. Area, X has actually revealed the successor to the Falcon 9 and the Falcon Heavy: the Super Heavy, Starship system. The Super Heavy very 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 offering fast transportation between cities in the world and building bases on the Moon and Mars.
Dragon can bring as lots of as seven astronauts, and it had a crewed flight bring astronauts Doug Hurley and Robert Behnken to the ISS in 2020. Musk looked for to lower the expenditure of spaceflight by establishing a totally recyclable rocket that might lift off and return to the pad it launched from. Beginning in 2012, Space, X's Grasshopper rocket made several brief flights to check such innovation. In addition to being CEO of Space, X, Musk was also primary designer in constructing the Falcon rockets, Dragon, and Insect. Get a Britannica Premium membership and gain access to special material. Subscribe Now Musk had actually long had an interest in the possibilities of electric cars, and in 2004 he ended up being one of the significant funders of Tesla Motors (later renamed Tesla), an electrical automobile company established by entrepreneurs Martin Eberhard and Marc Tarpenning.