Video released by spacecraft maker Area, X commemorating its Dragon capsule, which on May 25, 2012, became the first business spacecraft to dock with the International Area Station. Space, 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 Space, X, maker of launch cars and spacecraft. He was likewise one of the very first substantial financiers in, along with president of, the electric automobile maker Tesla. Leading Questions, Elon Musk was born upon June 28, 1971. Elon Musk cofounded the electronic payment firm Pay, Friend and established the spacecraft business Area, X.
Elon Musk founded Space, X, a company that makes rockets and spacecraft. He ended up being the president and a significant funder of Tesla, which makes electric cars and trucks. Musk was born to a South African father and a Canadian mother. He showed an early skill for computers and entrepreneurship. At age 12 he produced 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 reluctant to support apartheid through required military service and since he sought the higher financial opportunities offered 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 got bachelor's degrees in physics and economics in 1997.
In 1995 he founded Zip2, a company that offered maps and service directory sites to online papers. In 1999 Zip2 was purchased by the computer system maker Compaq for $307 million, and Musk then established an online financial services company, X.com, which later on became Pay, Friend, which focused on transferring cash online. The online auction e, Bay bought Pay, Buddy in 2002 for $1. 5 billion. Musk was long persuaded that for life to endure, humankind needs to end up being a multiplanet types. Nevertheless, he was dissatisfied with the great cost of rocket launchers. In 2002 he founded Area Exploration Technologies (Space, X) to make more budget-friendly rockets.
A third rocket, the Falcon Heavy (initially introduced in 2018), was designed to bring 117,000 pounds (53,000 kg) to orbit, almost twice as much as its largest rival, the Boeing Company's Delta IV Heavy, for one-third the cost. Area, X has revealed 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 developed for providing quick transport in between cities in the world and building 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 sought to lower the expenditure of spaceflight by developing a completely recyclable rocket that could raise off and go back to the pad it launched from. Starting in 2012, Area, X's Insect rocket made a number of short flights to evaluate such innovation. In addition to being CEO of Area, X, Musk was also primary designer in building the Falcon rockets, Dragon, and Grasshopper. Get a Britannica Premium membership and gain access to special material. Subscribe Now Musk had long been interested in the possibilities of electric automobiles, and in 2004 he turned into one of the major funders of Tesla Motors (later renamed Tesla), an electrical automobile business established by business owners Martin Eberhard and Marc Tarpenning.