Video released by spacecraft maker Area, X celebrating its Dragon capsule, which on May 25, 2012, became 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 business owner who cofounded the electronic-payment company Pay, Friend and formed Space, X, maker of launch lorries and spacecraft. He was likewise one of the first considerable financiers in, along with ceo of, the electrical vehicle producer Tesla. Top Questions, Elon Musk was born upon June 28, 1971. Elon Musk cofounded the electronic payment firm Pay, Buddy and established the spacecraft business Area, X.
Elon Musk established Space, X, a business that makes rockets and spacecraft. He ended up being the ceo and a major funder of Tesla, which makes electrical cars. Musk was born to a South African father and a Canadian mom. He displayed an early talent for computers and entrepreneurship. At age 12 he developed a computer game and sold it to a computer magazine. In 1988, after acquiring a Canadian passport, Musk left South Africa because he hesitated to support apartheid through obligatory military service and due to the fact that he sought the higher economic chances 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 supplied maps and business directory sites to online papers. In 1999 Zip2 was bought by the computer producer Compaq for $307 million, and Musk then founded an online monetary services company, X.com, which later ended up being Pay, Friend, which specialized in transferring money online. The online auction e, Bay purchased Pay, Pal in 2002 for $1. 5 billion. Musk was long convinced that for life to make it through, humankind needs to become a multiplanet types. However, he was disappointed with the great cost of rocket launchers. In 2002 he established Space Exploration Technologies (Space, X) to make more cost effective rockets.
A 3rd rocket, the Falcon Heavy (initially introduced in 2018), was developed 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 cost. Area, X has actually announced the successor to the Falcon 9 and the Falcon Heavy: the Super Heavy, Starship system. The Super Heavy first phase would be capable of lifting 100,000 kg (220,000 pounds) to low Earth orbit. The payload would be the Starship, a spacecraft created for supplying fast transport between cities on Earth and constructing bases on the Moon and Mars.
Dragon can bring as many as 7 astronauts, and it had a crewed flight carrying astronauts Doug Hurley and Robert Behnken to the ISS in 2020. Musk sought to decrease the expense of spaceflight by developing a fully reusable rocket that could lift off and return to the pad it introduced from. Starting in 2012, Space, X's Insect rocket made numerous short flights to evaluate such technology. In addition to being CEO of Space, X, Musk was also chief Get more information designer in constructing the Falcon rockets, Dragon, and Insect. Get a Britannica Premium subscription and gain access to unique content. Subscribe Now Musk had actually long been interested in the possibilities of electric automobiles, and in 2004 he turned into one of the significant funders of Tesla Motors (later relabelled Tesla), an electric vehicle company established by business owners Martin Eberhard and Marc Tarpenning.