Video launched by spacecraft maker Space, X celebrating its Dragon capsule, 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 entrepreneur who cofounded the electronic-payment company Pay, Friend and formed Area, X, maker of launch automobiles and spacecraft. He was also among the first significant investors in, as well as president of, the electric vehicle maker Tesla. Leading Questions, Elon Musk was born on June 28, 1971. Elon Musk cofounded the electronic payment firm Pay, Buddy and founded the spacecraft business Area, X.
Elon Musk established Space, X, a business that makes rockets and spacecraft. He ended up being the president and a major funder of Tesla, which makes electric cars. Musk was born to a South African father and a Canadian mother. He displayed an early talent for computers and entrepreneurship. At age 12 he produced a computer game and offered it to a computer system publication. In 1988, after obtaining a Canadian passport, Musk left South Africa because he was unwilling to support apartheid through required military service and because he looked for the higher financial opportunities offered in the United States. Musk attended 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 provided maps and service directory sites to online newspapers. In 1999 Zip2 was purchased by the computer manufacturer Compaq for $307 million, and Musk then established an online monetary services business, X.com, which later on ended up being Pay, Pal, which concentrated on moving money online. The online auction e, Bay purchased Pay, Buddy in 2002 for $1. 5 billion. Musk was long persuaded that for life to make it through, humankind needs to end up being a multiplanet species. However, he was disappointed with the fantastic expenditure of rocket launchers. In 2002 he founded Area Expedition Technologies (Space, X) to make more inexpensive rockets.
A 3rd rocket, the Falcon Heavy (first released in 2018), was designed to carry 117,000 pounds (53,000 kg) to orbit, almost twice as much as its largest rival, the Boeing Company's Delta IV Heavy, for one-third the cost. Area, 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 lifting 100,000 kg (220,000 pounds) to low Earth orbit. The payload would be the Starship, a spacecraft designed for offering quick transport in between cities in the world and constructing bases on the Moon Visit this site 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 sought to decrease the expense of spaceflight by developing a completely multiple-use rocket that might lift off and go back to Click for more the pad it introduced from. Beginning in 2012, Area, X's Insect rocket made numerous brief flights to test such technology. In addition to being CEO of Area, X, Musk was also chief designer in building the Falcon rockets, Dragon, and Grasshopper. Get a Britannica Premium subscription and gain access to unique material. Subscribe Now Musk had actually long been interested in the possibilities of electric automobiles, and in 2004 he ended up Go to the website being one of the major funders of Tesla Motors (later on renamed Tesla), an electrical vehicle business established by business owners Martin Eberhard and Marc Tarpenning.