Video released by spacecraft maker Space, X celebrating its Dragon capsule, which on May 25, 2012, ended up being the first industrial spacecraft to dock with the International Space Station. Space, X (A Britannica Publishing Partner), (born June 28, 1971, Pretoria, South Africa), here South African-born American business owner who cofounded the electronic-payment company Pay, Buddy and formed Space, X, maker of launch automobiles and spacecraft. He was also among the first substantial investors in, as well as ceo of, the electric cars and truck manufacturer Tesla. Top Concerns, Elon Musk was born upon June 28, 1971. Elon Musk cofounded the electronic payment firm Pay, Buddy and Helpful site established the spacecraft business Area, X.
Elon Musk founded Area, X, a business that makes rockets and spacecraft. He ended up being the chief executive officer and a major funder of Tesla, that makes electric cars. Musk was born to a South African father and a Canadian mom. He showed an early skill for computer systems and entrepreneurship. At age 12 he created a computer game and sold it to a computer system publication. In 1988, after acquiring a Canadian passport, Musk left South Africa due to the fact that he was reluctant to support apartheid through obligatory military service and since he looked for the greater economic 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 Extra resources physics and economics in 1997.
In 1995 he founded Zip2, a company that offered maps and business directory sites to online papers. In 1999 You can find out more Zip2 was purchased by the computer system manufacturer Compaq for $307 million, and Musk then founded an online financial services company, X.com, which later ended up being Pay, Friend, which focused on moving 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 needs to become a multiplanet types. Nevertheless, he was dissatisfied with the great expenditure of rocket launchers. In 2002 he founded Space Expedition Technologies (Space, X) to make more budget-friendly rockets.
A 3rd rocket, the Falcon Heavy (initially introduced in 2018), was created to carry 117,000 pounds (53,000 kg) to orbit, almost twice as much as its biggest competitor, the Boeing Business's Delta IV Heavy, for one-third the expense. Space, X has actually announced the follower to the Falcon 9 and the Falcon Heavy: the Super Heavy, Starship system. The Super Heavy very first phase would be capable of raising 100,000 kg (220,000 pounds) to low Earth orbit. The payload would be the Starship, a spacecraft created for supplying fast transport in between cities in the world and building bases on the Moon and Mars.
Dragon can bring as numerous 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 fully recyclable rocket that could take off and return to the pad it released from. Beginning in 2012, Space, X's Grasshopper rocket made a number of brief flights to check such technology. In addition to being CEO of Space, X, Musk was also chief designer in constructing the Falcon rockets, Dragon, and Insect. Get a Britannica Premium subscription and gain access to special material. Subscribe Now Musk had long been interested in the possibilities of electrical cars, and in 2004 he turned into one of the significant funders of Tesla Motors (later relabelled Tesla), an electric cars and truck business founded by entrepreneurs Martin Eberhard and Marc Tarpenning.