Video launched by spacecraft maker Space, X commemorating its Dragon pill, which on May 25, 2012, became the very first commercial spacecraft to dock with the International Spaceport Station. Area, X (A Britannica Publishing Partner), (born June 28, 1971, Pretoria, South Africa), South African-born American business owner who cofounded the electronic-payment company Pay, Pal and formed Area, X, maker of launch lorries and spacecraft. He was likewise among the first considerable financiers in, along with ceo of, the electric cars and truck maker Tesla. Top Concerns, Elon Musk was born upon June 28, 1971. Elon Musk cofounded the electronic payment firm Pay, Pal and established the spacecraft company Space, X.
Elon Musk founded Area, X, a business that makes rockets and spacecraft. He ended up being the ceo and a significant funder of Tesla, which makes electric cars and trucks. Musk was born to a South African daddy and a Canadian mom. He displayed an early talent for computer systems and entrepreneurship. At age 12 he developed a video game and offered it to a computer publication. In 1988, after getting a Canadian passport, Musk left South Africa because he was reluctant to support apartheid through required military service and since he looked for the higher financial opportunities readily available in the United States. Musk attended Queen's University in Kingston, Ontario, and in 1992 he moved 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 provided maps and organization directories to online newspapers. In 1999 Zip2 was bought by the computer system manufacturer Compaq for $307 million, and Musk then established an online financial services company, X.com, which later on ended up being Pay, Buddy, which concentrated on transferring money online. The online auction e, Bay purchased Pay, Buddy in 2002 for $1. 5 billion. Musk was long convinced that for life to survive, mankind has to become a multiplanet types. Nevertheless, he was dissatisfied with the fantastic expenditure of rocket launchers. In 2002 he founded Area Expedition Technologies (Space, X) to make more affordable rockets.
A 3rd rocket, the Falcon Heavy (initially launched 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 cost. Area, X has announced the successor to the Falcon 9 and the Falcon Heavy: the Super Heavy, Starship system. The Super Heavy first phase would can lifting 100,000 kg (220,000 pounds) to low Earth orbit. The payload would be the Starship, a spacecraft created for providing fast transport in 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 looked for to minimize the cost of spaceflight by establishing a totally multiple-use rocket that could take off and go back to the pad it released from. Beginning in 2012, Area, X's Grasshopper rocket made a number of short flights to test such technology. In addition to being CEO of Space, X, Musk was likewise primary designer in building the Falcon rockets, Dragon, and Insect. Get a Britannica Premium subscription and gain access to unique material. Subscribe Now Musk had actually long been interested in the possibilities of electrical automobiles, and in 2004 he turned into one of the major funders of Tesla Motors (later on renamed Tesla), an electrical vehicle business founded by entrepreneurs Martin Eberhard and Marc Tarpenning.