Video launched by spacecraft maker Area, X celebrating its Dragon pill, which on May 25, 2012, ended up being the very first industrial 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 entrepreneur who cofounded the electronic-payment company Pay, Buddy and formed Space, X, maker of launch lorries and spacecraft. He was also one of the very first substantial investors in, along with president of, the electrical automobile producer Tesla. Top Concerns, Elon Musk was born on June 28, 1971. Elon Musk cofounded the electronic payment company Pay, Pal and founded the spacecraft business Space, X.
Elon Musk established Space, X, a company that makes rockets and spacecraft. He ended up being the president and a major funder of Tesla, that makes electric automobiles. Musk was born to a South African father and a Canadian mother. He displayed an early talent for computer systems and entrepreneurship. At age 12 he created a video game and sold it to a computer system magazine. In 1988, after acquiring a Canadian passport, Musk left South Africa because he was reluctant to support apartheid through mandatory military service and because he sought the higher financial opportunities offered 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 company that provided maps and company directory sites to online papers. In 1999 Zip2 was bought by the computer manufacturer Compaq for $307 million, and Musk then founded an online monetary services company, X.com, which later became Pay, Pal, which specialized in transferring money online. The online auction e, Bay purchased Pay, Buddy in 2002 for $1. 5 billion. Musk was long persuaded that for life to endure, mankind needs to become a multiplanet species. However, he was dissatisfied with the excellent expense of rocket launchers. In 2002 he established Area Exploration Technologies (Space, X) to make more affordable rockets.
A third rocket, the Falcon Heavy (first released in 2018), was developed to bring 117,000 pounds (53,000 kg) to orbit, nearly twice as much as its largest competitor, the Boeing Business's Delta IV Heavy, for one-third the expense. Area, X has revealed the follower to the Falcon 9 and the Falcon Heavy: the Super Heavy, Starship system. The Super Heavy very first phase would can raising 100,000 kg (220,000 pounds) to low Earth orbit. The payload would be the Starship, a spacecraft developed for offering quick transportation between cities on Earth and developing bases on the Moon and Mars.
Dragon can bring as numerous as 7 astronauts, and it had a crewed flight carrying astronauts Doug Hurley and Robert Behnken to the ISS in 2020. Musk sought to lower the expense of spaceflight by establishing a fully reusable rocket that could lift off and return to the pad it introduced from. Starting in 2012, Space, X's Grasshopper rocket made a number of short flights to test such technology. In addition to being CEO of Space, X, Musk was also chief designer in developing the Falcon rockets, Dragon, and Insect. Get a Britannica Premium membership and gain access to special content. Subscribe Now Musk had actually long had an interest in the possibilities of electric cars, and in 2004 he turned into one of the major funders of Tesla Motors (later on renamed Tesla), an electrical cars and truck company established by entrepreneurs Martin Eberhard and Marc Tarpenning.