Video launched by spacecraft maker Area, X celebrating its Dragon pill, which on May 25, 2012, became the first industrial spacecraft to dock with the International Area 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 automobiles and spacecraft. He was also one of the very first significant financiers in, as well as president of, the electrical automobile maker Tesla. Leading Concerns, Elon Musk was born on June 28, 1971. Elon Musk cofounded the electronic payment firm Pay, Buddy and founded the spacecraft business Space, X.
Elon Musk founded Area, X, a company that makes rockets and spacecraft. He ended up being the ceo and a major funder of Tesla, which makes electric automobiles. Musk was born to a South African dad and a Canadian mom. He displayed an early skill for computer systems and entrepreneurship. At age 12 he produced a computer game and offered it to a computer magazine. In 1988, after obtaining a Canadian passport, Musk left South Africa due to the fact that he hesitated to support apartheid through mandatory military service and because he looked for the higher economic opportunities offered 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 business that offered maps and business directory sites to online papers. In 1999 Zip2 was bought by the computer system manufacturer Compaq for $307 million, and Musk then founded an online financial services business, X.com, which later on ended up being Pay, Pal, which concentrated on moving cash online. The online auction e, Bay bought Pay, Buddy in 2002 for $1. 5 billion. Musk was long convinced that for life to survive, humanity needs to become a multiplanet types. Nevertheless, he was disappointed with the great cost of rocket launchers. In 2002 he established Area Expedition Technologies (Area, X) to make more affordable 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. Area, X has actually announced 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 developed for offering quick transport in between cities in the world and building bases on the Moon and Mars.
Dragon can bring as lots of as 7 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 establishing a completely reusable rocket that could take off and return to the pad it released from. Beginning in 2012, Area, X's Grasshopper rocket made numerous short flights to evaluate such technology. In addition to being CEO of Space, X, Musk was also chief Learn here designer in building the Falcon rockets, Dragon, and Insect. Get a Britannica Premium subscription and gain access to unique content. Subscribe Now Musk had actually long had an interest in the possibilities of electric cars, and in 2004 he became one of the major funders of Tesla Motors (later on renamed Tesla), an electric automobile company founded by entrepreneurs Martin Eberhard and Marc Tarpenning.