Video released by spacecraft maker Area, X commemorating 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 business owner who cofounded the electronic-payment firm Pay, Friend and formed Area, X, maker of launch lorries and spacecraft. He was also among the first significant investors in, as well as ceo of, the electrical vehicle manufacturer Tesla. Top Questions, Elon Musk was born on June 28, 1971. Elon Musk cofounded the electronic payment firm Pay, Pal and founded the spacecraft company Area, X.
Elon Musk founded Space, X, a business that makes rockets and spacecraft. He ended up being the chief executive officer and a major funder of Tesla, which makes electric automobiles. Musk was born to a South African dad and a Canadian mom. He showed an early talent for computer systems and entrepreneurship. At age 12 he developed a video 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 mandatory military service and because he looked for the greater financial opportunities available in the United States. Musk participated in Queen's University in Kingston, Ontario, and in 1992 he transferred to the University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, where he received Learn more bachelor's degrees in physics and economics in 1997.
In 1995 he founded Zip2, a company that offered maps and service directories to online newspapers. In 1999 Zip2 was purchased by the computer manufacturer Compaq for $307 million, and Musk then established an online financial services business, X.com, which later ended up being Pay, Pal, which focused on moving money online. The online auction e, Bay bought Pay, Friend in 2002 for $1. 5 billion. Musk was long convinced that for life to endure, humankind needs to end up being a multiplanet types. However, he was dissatisfied with the great expense of rocket launchers. In 2002 he established Area Expedition Technologies (Area, X) to make more affordable rockets.
A third rocket, the Falcon Heavy (first released in 2018), was created here to bring 117,000 pounds (53,000 kg) to orbit, almost twice as much as its largest competitor, the Boeing Business's Delta IV Heavy, for one-third the expense. Area, 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 can raising 100,000 kg (220,000 pounds) to low Earth orbit. The payload would be the Starship, a spacecraft created for offering quick transport between cities on Earth and constructing bases on the Moon 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 looked for to lower the cost of spaceflight by establishing a totally reusable rocket that might raise off and return to the pad it launched from. Starting in 2012, Space, X's Insect rocket made numerous brief flights to check such innovation. In addition to being CEO of Area, X, Musk was likewise primary designer in constructing the Falcon rockets, Dragon, and Grasshopper. Get a Britannica Premium membership and gain access to special content. Subscribe Now Musk had long had an interest in the possibilities of electric cars, and in 2004 he turned into one of the significant funders of Tesla Motors (later on renamed Tesla), an electrical vehicle business established by entrepreneurs Martin Eberhard and Marc Tarpenning.