Video released 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, Friend and formed Space, X, maker of launch lorries and spacecraft. He was likewise among the very first significant investors in, in addition to chief executive officer of, the electric automobile maker Tesla. Top Questions, Elon Musk was born on June 28, 1971. Elon Musk cofounded the electronic payment company Pay, Buddy and established the spacecraft company Area, X.
Elon Musk founded Space, X, a business that makes rockets and spacecraft. He became the ceo and a major funder of Tesla, that makes electric cars. Musk was born to a South African father and a Canadian mom. 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 due to the fact that he hesitated to support apartheid through required military service and due to the fact that he sought the higher economic chances readily available in the United States. Musk participated in 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 business that provided maps and service directory sites to online papers. In 1999 Zip2 was bought by the computer system maker Compaq for $307 million, and Musk then established an online monetary services company, X.com, which later ended up being Pay, Pal, which concentrated on moving money online. The online auction e, Bay bought Pay, Pal in 2002 for $1. 5 billion. Musk was long convinced that for life to make it through, mankind needs to become a multiplanet species. However, he was dissatisfied with the fantastic expenditure of rocket launchers. In 2002 he founded Space Expedition Technologies (Space, X) to make more economical rockets.
A third rocket, the Falcon Heavy (first introduced in 2018), was designed to bring 117,000 pounds (53,000 kg) to orbit, almost two times as much as its biggest competitor, the Boeing Company's Delta IV Heavy, for one-third the expense. Area, X has actually revealed the follower to the Falcon 9 and the Falcon Heavy: the Super Heavy, Starship system. The Super Heavy very first phase would can lifting 100,000 kg (220,000 pounds) to low Earth orbit. The payload would be the Starship, a spacecraft designed for supplying fast transportation 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 bring astronauts Doug Hurley and Robert Behnken to the ISS in 2020. Musk sought to decrease the expenditure of spaceflight by developing a fully multiple-use rocket that could take off and go back to the pad it introduced from. Starting in 2012, Area, X's Insect rocket made several brief flights to test such innovation. In addition to being CEO of Area, X, Musk was likewise primary designer in constructing the Falcon rockets, Dragon, and Grasshopper. Get a Britannica Premium subscription and gain access to special content. Subscribe Now Musk had actually long had an interest in the possibilities of electrical cars and trucks, and in 2004 he ended up being one of the significant funders of Tesla Motors (later relabelled Tesla), an electric cars and truck business established by business owners Martin Eberhard and Marc Tarpenning.
