Video released by spacecraft maker Area, X commemorating its Dragon capsule, which on May 25, 2012, ended up being the first industrial 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 company Pay, Buddy and formed Area, X, maker of launch cars and spacecraft. He was also among the very first significant investors in, as well as primary executive officer of, the electrical cars and truck producer Tesla. Top Concerns, Elon Musk was born on June 28, 1971. Elon Musk cofounded the electronic payment company Pay, Pal and established the spacecraft business Space, X.
Elon Musk established Space, X, a business that makes rockets and spacecraft. He ended up being the chief executive officer and a major funder of Tesla, that makes electrical cars. Musk was born to a South African daddy and a Canadian mother. He displayed an early talent for computers and entrepreneurship. At age 12 he developed a video game and offered it to a computer publication. In 1988, after obtaining a Canadian passport, Musk left South Africa because he hesitated to support apartheid through obligatory military service and since he looked for the higher economic opportunities readily available in the United States. Musk participated in 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 business directory sites to online newspapers. In 1999 Zip2 was purchased by the computer manufacturer Compaq for $307 million, and Musk then founded an online monetary services business, X.com, which later ended up being Pay, Friend, which focused on Additional reading transferring money online. The online auction e, Bay bought Pay, Pal in 2002 for $1. 5 billion. Musk was long convinced that for life to make it through, humankind needs to become a multiplanet types. However, he was disappointed with the terrific cost of rocket launchers. In 2002 he founded Space Exploration Technologies (Space, X) to make more budget friendly rockets.
A 3rd rocket, the Falcon Heavy (first launched in 2018), was designed 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. Space, X has revealed the follower to the Falcon 9 and the Falcon Heavy: the Super Heavy, Starship system. The Super Heavy very first phase would be capable of raising 100,000 kg (220,000 pounds) to low Earth orbit. The payload would be the Starship, a spacecraft designed for supplying fast transport between cities in the world and constructing bases on the Moon and Mars.
Dragon can bring as lots of 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 minimize the expense of spaceflight by establishing a totally recyclable rocket that might lift off and return to the pad it introduced from. Beginning in 2012, Space, X's Insect rocket made several brief flights to test such innovation. In addition to being CEO of Area, X, Musk was also primary designer in constructing the Falcon rockets, Dragon, and Grasshopper. Get a Britannica Premium membership and gain access to exclusive content. Subscribe Now Musk had actually long been Homepage interested in the possibilities of electric cars, and in 2004 he became one of the major funders of Tesla Motors (later on renamed Tesla), an electric car company founded by entrepreneurs Martin Eberhard and Marc Tarpenning.