Video released by spacecraft maker Area, X celebrating its Dragon pill, which on May 25, 2012, ended up being the first commercial 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 cars and spacecraft. He was likewise one of the first considerable investors in, as well as president of, the electrical vehicle maker Tesla. Leading Concerns, Elon Musk was born upon June 28, 1971. Elon Musk cofounded the electronic payment firm Pay, Buddy and founded the spacecraft business Space, X.
Elon Musk established Area, X, a company that makes rockets and spacecraft. He ended up being the president and a major funder of Tesla, that makes electrical automobiles. Musk was born to a South African father and a Canadian mother. He showed an early skill for computers and entrepreneurship. At age 12 he created 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 mandatory military service and since he sought the greater economic chances readily available in the United States. Musk participated in Queen's University in Kingston, Ontario, and in 1992 he moved to the University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, where he got bachelor's degrees in physics and economics in 1997.
In 1995 he founded Zip2, a company that supplied maps and service directory sites to online papers. In 1999 Zip2 was bought by the computer maker Compaq for $307 million, and Musk then founded an online monetary services business, X.com, which later became Pay, Buddy, 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 survive, mankind has to become a multiplanet species. However, he was dissatisfied with the excellent expense of rocket launchers. In 2002 he established Space Expedition Technologies (Area, X) to make more budget-friendly rockets.
A 3rd rocket, the Falcon Heavy (initially introduced in 2018), Discover more here was developed to carry 117,000 pounds (53,000 kg) to orbit, nearly twice as much as its biggest rival, the Boeing Company's Delta IV Heavy, for one-third the cost. Space, X has announced the follower 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 providing quick transportation between cities on Earth and building 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 decrease the cost of spaceflight by establishing a totally multiple-use rocket that might raise off and go back to the pad it released from. Beginning in 2012, Space, X's Grasshopper rocket made several short flights to test such innovation. In addition to being CEO of Space, X, Musk was also chief designer in developing the Falcon rockets, Dragon, and Grasshopper. Get a Britannica Premium subscription and gain access to special content. Subscribe Now Musk had long been interested in the possibilities of electric cars and trucks, and in 2004 he turned into one of the significant funders of Tesla Motors (later on relabelled Tesla), an electric automobile business established by business owners Martin Eberhard and Marc Tarpenning.