Video launched by spacecraft maker Area, X celebrating its Dragon pill, which on May 25, 2012, ended up being 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 entrepreneur who cofounded the electronic-payment firm Pay, Buddy and formed Space, X, maker of launch automobiles and spacecraft. He was also one of the first substantial financiers in, in addition to primary executive officer of, the electrical car manufacturer Tesla. Top Concerns, Elon Musk was born on June 28, 1971. Elon Musk cofounded the electronic payment firm Pay, Pal and established the spacecraft business Space, X.
Elon Musk established Area, X, a company that makes rockets and spacecraft. He ended up being the ceo and a significant funder of Tesla, that makes electric cars and trucks. Musk was born to a South African dad and a Canadian mother. He displayed an early talent for computer systems and entrepreneurship. At age 12 he developed a computer game and offered it to a computer publication. In 1988, after getting a Canadian passport, Musk left South Africa because he was unwilling to support apartheid through obligatory military service and since he sought the greater financial opportunities readily available 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 received bachelor's degrees in physics and economics in 1997.
In 1995 he founded Zip2, a business that supplied maps and company 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 business, X.com, which later on ended up being Pay, Friend, which concentrated on moving money online. The online auction e, Bay bought Pay, Pal in 2002 for $1. 5 billion. Musk was long persuaded that for life to endure, humanity has to become a multiplanet types. Nevertheless, he was disappointed with the excellent cost of rocket launchers. In 2002 he established Area Exploration Technologies (Space, X) to make more budget friendly rockets.
A 3rd rocket, the Falcon Heavy (initially launched in 2018), was created to carry 117,000 pounds (53,000 kg) to orbit, almost two times as much as its largest 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 be capable of lifting 100,000 kg (220,000 pounds) to low Earth orbit. The payload would be the Starship, a spacecraft created for offering quick transport between cities on Earth and developing 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 expenditure of spaceflight by establishing a totally multiple-use rocket that might lift off and return to the pad it released from. Beginning in 2012, Space, X's Grasshopper rocket made several brief flights to test such technology. In addition to being CEO of Area, X, Musk was also chief designer in constructing the Falcon rockets, Dragon, and Grasshopper. Get a Britannica Premium subscription and gain access to special content. Subscribe Now Musk had long had an interest in the possibilities of electrical automobiles, and in 2004 he ended up being one of the significant funders of Tesla Motors (later on relabelled Tesla), an electrical cars and truck business founded by entrepreneurs Martin Eberhard and Marc Tarpenning.