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 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, Friend and formed Space, X, maker of launch vehicles and spacecraft. He was also one of the very first substantial investors in, as well as ceo of, the electrical vehicle maker Tesla. Top Questions, Elon Musk was born upon June 28, 1971. Elon Musk cofounded the electronic payment firm Pay, Friend and founded the spacecraft business Space, X.
Elon Musk established Space, X, a business that makes rockets and spacecraft. He ended up being the president and a significant funder of Tesla, which makes electric automobiles. Musk was born to a South African father and a Canadian mother. He showed an early skill for computers and entrepreneurship. At age 12 he created a video game and sold it to a computer system magazine. In 1988, after getting a Canadian passport, Musk left South Africa because he was unwilling to support apartheid through mandatory military service and due to the fact that he sought the higher economic chances 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 established Zip2, a business that supplied maps and business directory sites to online newspapers. In 1999 Zip2 was bought by the computer system maker Compaq for $307 million, and Musk then founded an online monetary services company, X.com, which later on became Pay, Pal, which focused on transferring money online. The online auction e, Bay bought Pay, Pal in 2002 for $1. 5 billion. Musk was long persuaded that for life to survive, mankind has to become a multiplanet species. Nevertheless, he was dissatisfied with the great cost of rocket launchers. In 2002 he established Area Expedition Technologies (Space, X) to make more inexpensive rockets.
A third rocket, the Falcon Heavy (first released in 2018), was created to bring 117,000 pounds (53,000 kg) to orbit, nearly two times as much as its biggest competitor, the Boeing Business's Delta IV Heavy, for one-third the cost. Area, X has revealed the follower 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 quick transportation in between cities in the world and developing 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 minimize the cost of spaceflight by establishing a totally multiple-use rocket that might take off and return to the pad it released from. Starting in 2012, Space, X's Insect rocket made a number of short flights to evaluate such technology. In addition to being CEO of Area, X, Musk was also chief designer in building the Falcon rockets, Dragon, and Grasshopper. Get a Britannica Premium membership and gain access to unique content. Subscribe Now Musk had actually long been interested in the possibilities of electric cars, and in 2004 he became one of the major funders of Tesla Motors (later renamed Tesla), an electric vehicle company founded by business owners Martin Eberhard and Marc Tarpenning.