Video launched by spacecraft maker Area, X commemorating its Dragon pill, which on May 25, 2012, ended up being the first commercial 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 entrepreneur who cofounded the electronic-payment company Pay, Pal and formed Area, X, maker of launch vehicles and spacecraft. He was also one of the very first significant financiers in, in addition to primary executive officer of, the electric cars and truck producer Tesla. Leading Questions, Elon Musk was born upon June 28, 1971. Elon Musk cofounded the electronic payment firm Pay, Pal and established the spacecraft company Area, X.
Elon Musk founded Area, X, a business that makes rockets and spacecraft. He ended up being the chief executive officer and a major funder of Tesla, that makes electric cars. Musk was born to a South African father and a Canadian mom. He displayed an early talent for computer systems and entrepreneurship. At age 12 he produced a computer game and sold it to a computer system publication. In 1988, after getting a Canadian passport, Musk left South Africa because he hesitated to support apartheid through compulsory military service and because he looked for the greater financial chances available in the United States. Musk went to 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 established Zip2, a company that offered maps and service directories to online newspapers. In 1999 Zip2 was bought by the computer system manufacturer Compaq for $307 million, and Musk then founded an online monetary services company, X.com, which later on ended up being Pay, Buddy, which specialized in transferring cash online. The online auction e, Bay purchased Pay, Buddy in 2002 for $1. 5 billion. Musk was long persuaded that for life to survive, humanity has to become a multiplanet species. Nevertheless, he was dissatisfied with the excellent expenditure of rocket launchers. In 2002 he established Area Exploration Technologies (Area, X) to make more budget-friendly rockets.
A third rocket, the Falcon Heavy (initially launched in 2018), was developed to carry 117,000 pounds (53,000 kg) to orbit, nearly two times as much as its biggest rival, the Boeing Business's Delta IV Heavy, for one-third the expense. 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 can lifting 100,000 kg (220,000 pounds) to low Earth orbit. The payload would be the Starship, a spacecraft created for offering fast transportation between cities on Earth and developing bases on the Moon and Additional resources Mars.
Dragon can carry 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 reduce the expenditure of spaceflight by establishing a fully reusable rocket that could lift off and return to the pad it released from. Beginning in 2012, Space, X's Grasshopper rocket made a number of short flights to evaluate such technology. In addition to being CEO of Space, X, Musk was likewise primary designer in building the Falcon rockets, Dragon, and Grasshopper. 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 relabelled Tesla), an electrical automobile company established by entrepreneurs Martin Eberhard and Marc Tarpenning.