Video released by spacecraft maker Area, X celebrating its Dragon pill, which on May 25, 2012, became the first business spacecraft to dock with the International Spaceport 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, Pal and formed Space, X, maker of launch vehicles and spacecraft. He was likewise among the very first substantial investors in, along with primary executive officer of, the electric cars and truck producer Tesla. Top Questions, Elon Musk was born upon June 28, 1971. Elon Musk cofounded the electronic payment firm Pay, Pal and founded the spacecraft business Space, X.
Elon Musk established Area, X, a business that makes rockets and spacecraft. He became the president and a major funder of Tesla, that 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 created a video game and sold it to a computer publication. In 1988, after obtaining a Canadian passport, Musk left South Africa since he hesitated to support apartheid through compulsory military service and because he sought the higher economic chances available in the United States. Musk attended 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 founded Zip2, a company that provided maps and company directories to online newspapers. In 1999 Zip2 was purchased by the computer manufacturer Compaq for $307 million, and Musk then established an online financial services business, X.com, which later ended up being Pay, Pal, which specialized in moving cash online. The online auction e, Bay bought Pay, here Friend in 2002 for $1. 5 billion. Musk was long convinced that for life to survive, humanity needs to become a multiplanet species. Nevertheless, he was dissatisfied with the fantastic cost of rocket launchers. In 2002 he founded Space Exploration Technologies (Space, X) to make more affordable rockets.
A 3rd rocket, the Falcon Heavy (first released in 2018), was developed to carry 117,000 pounds (53,000 kg) to orbit, nearly twice as much as its largest rival, the Boeing Business's Delta IV Heavy, for one-third the cost. Area, X has revealed the successor 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 created for providing quick transportation between cities in the world and developing bases on the Moon and Mars.
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Dragon can carry as lots of as 7 astronauts, and Click here it had a crewed flight bring astronauts Doug Hurley and Robert Behnken to the ISS in 2020. Musk looked for to decrease Home page the expense of spaceflight by establishing a completely reusable rocket that might take off and go back to the pad it released from. Beginning in 2012, Area, X's Grasshopper rocket made numerous brief flights to test such innovation. In addition to being CEO of Space, X, Musk was likewise primary designer in building 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 automobiles, and in 2004 he turned into one of the significant funders of Tesla Motors (later relabelled Tesla), an electric vehicle business founded by entrepreneurs Martin Eberhard and Marc Tarpenning.