Video released by spacecraft maker Space, X commemorating its Dragon pill, which on May 25, 2012, ended up being the first business 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, Friend and formed Area, X, maker of launch automobiles and spacecraft. He was also among the first significant investors in, in addition to president of, the electric car producer Tesla. Top Questions, Elon Musk was born on June 28, 1971. Elon Musk cofounded the electronic payment company Pay, Friend and founded the spacecraft business Area, X.
Elon Musk established Space, X, a business that makes rockets and spacecraft. He became the primary executive officer and a major funder of Tesla, which makes electrical vehicles. Musk was born to a South African father and a Canadian mother. 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 unwilling to support apartheid through required military service and because he looked for the greater financial opportunities Go to this site 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 got bachelor's degrees in physics and economics in 1997.
In 1995 he established Zip2, a company that offered maps and service directory sites to online newspapers. In 1999 Zip2 was purchased by the computer maker Compaq for $307 million, and Musk then founded an online financial services business, X.com, which later became Pay, Buddy, which focused on transferring cash online. The online auction e, Bay bought Pay, Buddy in 2002 for $1. 5 billion. Musk was long convinced that for life to make it through, humanity needs to become a multiplanet types. However, he was disappointed with the terrific expense of rocket launchers. In 2002 he established Space Expedition Technologies (Area, X) to make more budget-friendly rockets.
A 3rd rocket, the Falcon Heavy (first released in 2018), was developed to carry 117,000 pounds (53,000 kg) to orbit, almost two times as much as its largest rival, the Boeing Business's Delta IV Heavy, for one-third the cost. Space, X has actually revealed the successor to the Falcon 9 and the Falcon Heavy: the Super Heavy, Starship system. The Super Heavy first stage would be capable of lifting 100,000 kg (220,000 pounds) to low Earth orbit. The payload would be the Starship, a spacecraft developed for providing fast transport between cities in the world and constructing bases on the Moon and Mars.
Dragon can bring as numerous as seven astronauts, and it had a crewed flight bring astronauts Doug Hurley and Robert Behnken to the ISS in 2020. Musk looked for to decrease the expense of spaceflight by establishing a fully reusable rocket that could lift off and go back to the pad it introduced from. Beginning in 2012, Space, X's Insect rocket made a number of brief flights to evaluate such technology. In addition to being CEO of Space, X, Musk was also chief designer in building the Falcon rockets, Dragon, and Grasshopper. Get a Britannica Premium subscription and gain access to special material. Subscribe Now Musk had long had an interest in the possibilities of electrical vehicles, and in 2004 he became one of the significant funders of Tesla Motors (later on renamed Tesla), an electrical cars and truck company established by entrepreneurs Martin Eberhard and Marc Tarpenning.