Video released by spacecraft maker Space, X commemorating its Dragon capsule, which on May 25, 2012, became the very 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 Area, X, maker of launch cars and spacecraft. He was likewise one of the very first substantial investors in, as well as chief executive officer of, the electric vehicle maker Tesla. Leading Concerns, Elon Musk was born on June 28, 1971. Elon Musk cofounded the electronic payment company Pay, Pal and established the spacecraft company Space, X.
Elon Musk founded Area, X, a company that makes rockets and spacecraft. He became the primary executive officer and a major funder of Tesla, that makes electrical cars and trucks. Musk was born to a South African dad and a Canadian mother. He showed an early skill for computers and entrepreneurship. At age 12 he created a video game and offered it to a computer publication. In 1988, after acquiring a Canadian passport, Musk left South Africa because he was unwilling to support apartheid through required military service and since he sought the greater economic chances 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 received bachelor's degrees in physics and economics in 1997.
In 1995 he established Zip2, a business that supplied maps and business directory sites to online newspapers. In 1999 Zip2 was purchased by the computer maker Compaq for $307 million, and Musk then founded an online monetary services company, X.com, which later became Pay, Pal, which specialized in moving money online. The online auction e, Bay purchased Pay, Buddy in 2002 for $1. 5 billion. Musk was long persuaded that for life to survive, humankind needs to become a multiplanet species. Nevertheless, he was dissatisfied with the fantastic expenditure of rocket launchers. In 2002 he founded Area Expedition Technologies (Space, X) to make more cost effective rockets.
A 3rd rocket, the Falcon Heavy (first launched in 2018), was created to bring 117,000 pounds (53,000 kg) to orbit, nearly twice as much as its largest rival, the Boeing Business's Delta IV Heavy, for one-third the expense. Space, X has revealed the successor to the Falcon 9 and the Falcon Heavy: the Super Heavy, Starship system. The Super Heavy first stage would can raising 100,000 kg (220,000 pounds) to low Earth orbit. The payload would be the Starship, a spacecraft developed for supplying fast transportation between cities in the world and developing bases on the Moon and Mars.
Dragon can carry as many as 7 astronauts, and it had a crewed flight carrying astronauts Doug Hurley and Robert Behnken to the ISS in 2020. Musk looked for to reduce the expenditure of spaceflight by developing a totally multiple-use rocket that could take off and return to the pad it introduced from. Starting in 2012, Area, X's Grasshopper rocket made a number of short flights to evaluate such technology. In addition to being CEO of Space, X, Musk was likewise primary designer in building the Falcon rockets, Dragon, and Grasshopper. Get a Britannica Premium membership and gain access to unique content. Subscribe Now Musk had long had an interest in the possibilities of electric cars, and in 2004 he became one of the major funders of Tesla Motors (later relabelled Tesla), an electric vehicle company founded by entrepreneurs Martin Eberhard and Marc Tarpenning.