Video launched by spacecraft maker Area, X commemorating its Dragon capsule, 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 firm Pay, Pal and formed Space, X, maker of launch automobiles and spacecraft. He was also one of the very first significant investors in, in addition to president of, the electrical cars and truck manufacturer Tesla. Top Concerns, Elon Musk was born upon June 28, 1971. Elon Musk cofounded the electronic payment firm Pay, Pal and established the spacecraft business Space, X.
Elon Musk founded Area, X, a business that makes rockets and spacecraft. He ended up being the primary executive officer and a significant funder of Tesla, that makes electrical vehicles. 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 created a computer game and sold it to a computer magazine. In 1988, after acquiring a Canadian passport, Musk left South Africa due to the fact that he hesitated to support apartheid through mandatory military service and since he sought the higher economic chances available in the United States. Musk attended 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 founded Zip2, a company that offered maps and service directories to online papers. In 1999 Zip2 was purchased by the computer system manufacturer Compaq for $307 million, and Musk then established an online monetary services business, X.com, which later became Pay, Pal, which concentrated on moving cash online. The online auction e, Bay bought Pay, Friend in 2002 for $1. 5 billion. Musk was long persuaded that for life to survive, mankind has to become a multiplanet species. Nevertheless, he was disappointed with the fantastic expenditure of rocket launchers. In 2002 he founded Space Exploration Technologies (Area, X) to make more cost effective rockets.
A third rocket, the Falcon Heavy (initially launched in 2018), was designed to bring 117,000 pounds (53,000 kg) to orbit, nearly two times as much as its biggest competitor, the Boeing Company's Delta IV Heavy, for one-third the expense. Space, X has actually revealed the follower to the Falcon 9 and the Falcon Heavy: the Super Heavy, Starship system. The Super Heavy very first stage would can lifting 100,000 kg (220,000 pounds) to low Earth orbit. The payload would be the Starship, a spacecraft created for providing fast transportation between cities in the world and constructing bases on the Moon and Mars.
Dragon can bring as many 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 decrease the expenditure of spaceflight by establishing a fully reusable rocket that might take off and return to the pad it launched from. Beginning in 2012, Area, X's Insect rocket made a number of short flights to test such technology. In addition to being CEO of Area, X, Musk was also chief designer in building the Falcon rockets, Dragon, and Insect. Get a Britannica Premium membership and gain access to special material. Subscribe Now Musk had long had an interest in the possibilities of electrical automobiles, and in 2004 he turned into one of the major funders of Tesla Motors (later relabelled Tesla), an electric vehicle company established by business owners Martin Eberhard and Marc Tarpenning.