Video released by spacecraft maker Space, X celebrating its Dragon capsule, which on May 25, 2012, became the very 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, Pal and formed Space, X, maker of launch automobiles and spacecraft. He was likewise one of the first significant investors in, in addition to ceo of, the electric automobile producer Tesla. Leading Questions, Elon Musk was born on June 28, 1971. Elon Musk cofounded the electronic payment company Pay, Buddy and established the spacecraft company Area, X.
Elon Musk founded Area, X, a company that makes rockets and spacecraft. He became the president and a significant funder of Tesla, which makes electrical vehicles. Musk was born to a South African father and a Canadian mother. He showed an early skill for computer systems and entrepreneurship. At age 12 he produced a video game and sold it to a computer publication. In 1988, after obtaining a Canadian passport, Musk left South Africa because he was reluctant to support apartheid through required military service and due to the fact that he sought the greater economic chances offered in the United States. Musk went to 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 established Zip2, a business that offered maps and business directory sites to online newspapers. In 1999 Zip2 was bought by the computer producer Compaq for $307 million, and Musk then founded an online monetary services company, X.com, which later on ended up being Pay, Friend, which concentrated on transferring money 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 species. Nevertheless, he was disappointed with the excellent expenditure of rocket launchers. In 2002 he established Area Expedition Technologies (Space, X) to make more budget friendly rockets.
A 3rd rocket, the Falcon Heavy (first launched in 2018), was created to carry 117,000 pounds (53,000 kg) to orbit, nearly twice as much as its biggest competitor, the Boeing Company's Delta IV Heavy, for one-third the expense. 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 be capable of lifting 100,000 kg (220,000 pounds) to low Earth orbit. The payload would be the Starship, a spacecraft designed for supplying quick transportation in between cities in the world and constructing 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 looked for to lower the expense of spaceflight by developing a fully recyclable rocket that could lift off and return to the pad it introduced from. Beginning in 2012, Area, X's Insect rocket made numerous brief flights to evaluate such technology. In addition to being CEO of Space, X, Musk was also chief designer in constructing the Falcon rockets, Dragon, and Grasshopper. Get a Britannica Premium subscription and gain access to unique content. Subscribe Now Musk had actually long been interested in the possibilities of electric vehicles, and in 2004 he turned into one of the major funders of Tesla Motors (later on renamed Tesla), an electrical cars and truck business founded by business owners Martin Eberhard and Marc Tarpenning.
