Video released by spacecraft maker Area, X commemorating its Dragon capsule, which on May 25, 2012, became the first commercial 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 firm Pay, Buddy and formed Space, X, maker of launch vehicles and spacecraft. He was also grimes and elon musk one of the first significant investors in, in addition to president of, the electric automobile manufacturer Tesla. Top Questions, Elon Musk was born upon June 28, 1971. Elon Musk cofounded the electronic payment company Pay, Buddy and founded the spacecraft business Area, X.
Elon Musk established Space, X, a business that makes rockets and spacecraft. He ended up being the president and a significant funder of Tesla, which makes electric cars. Musk was born to a South African dad and a Canadian mother. He showed an early talent for computers and entrepreneurship. At age 12 he developed a video game and sold it to a computer publication. In 1988, after obtaining a Canadian passport, Musk left South Africa due to the fact that he was unwilling to support apartheid through obligatory military service and because he sought the greater 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 business that offered maps and service directory sites to online newspapers. In 1999 Zip2 was purchased by the computer system maker Compaq for $307 million, and Musk then established an online monetary services company, X.com, which later became Pay, Pal, which focused on transferring money online. The online auction e, Bay bought Pay, Friend in 2002 for $1. 5 billion. Musk was elon musk wife long convinced that for life to endure, humanity has to become a multiplanet types. Nevertheless, he was disappointed with the great expense of rocket launchers. In 2002 he established Area Expedition Technologies (Space, X) to make more cost effective rockets.
A third rocket, the Falcon Heavy (first released in 2018), was designed to bring 117,000 pounds (53,000 kg) More helpful hints to orbit, nearly two times as much as its largest competitor, the Boeing Business's Delta IV Heavy, for one-third the cost. Area, X has actually revealed the successor to the Falcon 9 and the Falcon Heavy: the Super Heavy, Starship system. The Super Heavy very first stage would can raising 100,000 kg (220,000 pounds) to low Earth orbit. The payload would be the Starship, a spacecraft created for offering quick transportation between cities in the world 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 looked for to lower the expenditure of spaceflight by developing a totally reusable rocket that could lift off and return to the pad it released from. Starting in 2012, Area, X's Grasshopper rocket made numerous short flights to check such innovation. In addition to being CEO of Area, X, Musk was also chief designer in building the Falcon rockets, Dragon, and Insect. Get a Britannica Premium membership and gain access to exclusive material. Subscribe Now Musk had actually long been interested in the possibilities of electric cars, and in 2004 he turned into one of the major funders of Tesla Motors (later renamed Tesla), an electric cars and truck company founded by entrepreneurs Martin Eberhard and Marc Tarpenning.