Video released by spacecraft maker Space, X commemorating its Dragon pill, which on May 25, 2012, became the 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, Friend and formed Space, X, maker of launch lorries and spacecraft. He was also among the first considerable investors in, along with ceo of, the electric cars and truck manufacturer Tesla. Leading Concerns, Elon Musk was born on June 28, 1971. Elon Musk cofounded the electronic payment company Pay, Friend and established the spacecraft business Space, X.
Elon Musk founded Space, X, a company that makes rockets and spacecraft. He ended up being the ceo and a major funder of Tesla, which makes electric cars. Musk was born to a South African daddy and a Canadian mother. He showed an early talent for computer systems and entrepreneurship. At age 12 he produced a computer game and offered it to a computer publication. In 1988, after acquiring a Canadian passport, Musk left South Africa because he hesitated to support apartheid through compulsory military service and because he looked for the greater economic opportunities offered in the United States. Musk participated in 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 established Zip2, a business that supplied maps and organization directory sites to online newspapers. In 1999 Zip2 was purchased by the computer maker Compaq for $307 million, and Musk then founded an online financial services business, X.com, which later became Pay, Pal, which focused on transferring money online. The online auction e, Bay purchased Pay, Pal in 2002 for $1. 5 billion. Musk was long persuaded that for life to survive, humankind has to end up being a multiplanet species. Nevertheless, he was dissatisfied with the fantastic cost of rocket launchers. In 2002 he established Space Expedition Technologies (Space, X) to make more inexpensive rockets.
A third rocket, the Falcon Heavy (initially released in 2018), was created to carry 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 announced the follower to the Falcon 9 and the Falcon Heavy: the Super Heavy, Starship system. The Super Heavy first stage would be capable of lifting 100,000 kg (220,000 pounds) to low Earth orbit. The payload would be the Starship, a spacecraft designed for offering fast transportation between cities in the world and building 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 minimize the expense of spaceflight by developing a totally multiple-use rocket that could raise off and go back to the pad it introduced from. Starting in 2012, Space, X's Insect rocket made several short flights to evaluate such technology. In addition to being CEO of Area, X, Musk was also primary designer in constructing the Falcon rockets, Dragon, and Insect. Get a Britannica Premium subscription and gain access to unique material. Subscribe Now Musk had actually long had an interest in the possibilities of electrical cars and trucks, and in 2004 he turned into one of the major funders of Tesla Motors (later relabelled Tesla), an electrical automobile company founded by business owners Martin Eberhard and Marc Tarpenning.