Video launched by spacecraft maker Area, X celebrating its Dragon capsule, which on May 25, 2012, ended up being the very first industrial spacecraft to dock with the International Area Station. Area, X (A Britannica Publishing Partner), (born June 28, 1971, Pretoria, South Africa), South African-born American entrepreneur who cofounded the electronic-payment firm Pay, Pal and formed Space, X, maker of launch vehicles and spacecraft. He was also among the first considerable investors in, as well as ceo of, the electric cars and truck manufacturer Tesla. Leading Questions, Elon Musk was born on June 28, 1971. Elon Musk cofounded the electronic payment firm Pay, Friend and established the spacecraft business Area, X.
Elon Musk founded Area, X, a company that makes rockets and spacecraft. He became the president and a significant funder of Tesla, that makes electrical 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 created a video game and offered it to a computer publication. 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 since he sought the higher economic opportunities readily 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 received bachelor's degrees in physics and economics in 1997.
In 1995 he founded Zip2, a company that offered maps and company directories to online papers. In 1999 Zip2 was purchased by the computer manufacturer Compaq for $307 million, and Musk then founded an online financial services business, X.com, which later on ended up being Pay, Buddy, which specialized in moving cash online. The online auction e, Bay purchased Pay, Friend in 2002 for $1. 5 billion. Musk was long persuaded that for life to make it through, mankind has to end up being a multiplanet types. Nevertheless, he was disappointed with the fantastic cost of rocket launchers. In 2002 he founded Area Expedition Technologies (Space, X) to make more affordable rockets.
A third rocket, the Falcon Heavy (initially released in 2018), was created to bring 117,000 pounds (53,000 kg) to orbit, nearly two times as much as its biggest rival, the Boeing Business's Delta IV Heavy, for one-third the expense. Area, X has revealed the successor to the Falcon 9 and the Falcon Heavy: the Super Heavy, Starship system. The Super Heavy first stage would can lifting 100,000 kg (220,000 pounds) to low Earth orbit. The payload would be the Starship, a spacecraft created for offering fast transportation between cities on Earth and developing bases on the Moon and Mars.
Dragon can carry as many as seven astronauts, and it had a crewed flight carrying astronauts Doug Hurley and Robert Behnken to the ISS in 2020. Musk sought to minimize the expenditure of spaceflight by establishing a fully recyclable rocket that could raise off and go back to the pad it released from. Starting in 2012, Space, X's Grasshopper rocket made several short flights to evaluate such innovation. In addition to being CEO of Area, X, Musk was also chief designer in building 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 major funders of Tesla Motors (later relabelled Tesla), an electric automobile business founded by business owners Martin Eberhard and Marc Tarpenning.