Video launched by spacecraft maker Space, X commemorating its Dragon pill, which on May 25, 2012, ended up being the very first business spacecraft to dock with the International Space Station. Space, 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, Buddy and formed Area, X, maker of launch automobiles and spacecraft. He was also among the first considerable investors in, along with primary executive officer of, the electric car producer Tesla. Top Concerns, Elon Musk was born on June 28, 1971. Elon Musk cofounded the electronic payment company Pay, Friend and established the spacecraft company Space, X.
Elon Musk founded Area, X, a business that makes rockets and spacecraft. He became the president and a major funder of Tesla, which makes electric automobiles. Musk was born to a South African daddy and a Canadian mother. He showed an early skill for computer systems and entrepreneurship. At age 12 he developed a video game and offered it to a computer system magazine. In 1988, after obtaining a Canadian passport, Musk left South Africa because he was unwilling to support apartheid through mandatory military service and because he sought the greater economic 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 service directory sites to online papers. In 1999 Zip2 was bought by the computer system manufacturer Compaq for $307 million, and Musk then founded an online monetary services company, X.com, which later ended up being Pay, Friend, which specialized in moving cash online. The online auction e, Bay purchased Pay, Friend in 2002 for $1. 5 billion. Musk was long convinced that for life to survive, humankind has to end up being a multiplanet species. However, he was disappointed with the great expense of rocket launchers. In 2002 he established Area Exploration Technologies (Space, X) to make more budget-friendly rockets.
A 3rd rocket, the Falcon Heavy (first introduced 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 cost. Space, X has actually announced 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 created for supplying quick transport in between cities on Earth and developing bases on the Moon and Mars.
Dragon can bring as numerous 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 developing a fully multiple-use rocket that could take off and go back to the pad it introduced from. Beginning in 2012, Area, X's Insect rocket made a number of short flights to check such technology. In addition to being CEO of Space, X, Musk was likewise chief designer in developing the Falcon rockets, Dragon, and grimes and elon musk Grasshopper. Get a Britannica Premium subscription and gain access to special material. Subscribe Now Musk had actually long had an interest in the possibilities of electrical automobiles, and in 2004 he became one of the significant funders of Tesla Motors (later relabelled Tesla), an electrical automobile company founded by business owners Martin Eberhard and Marc Tarpenning.