Video released by spacecraft maker Area, X commemorating 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, Buddy and formed Area, X, maker of launch cars and spacecraft. He was also among the very first substantial investors in, in addition to chief executive officer of, the electric vehicle manufacturer Tesla. Leading Questions, Elon Musk was born upon June 28, 1971. Elon Musk cofounded the electronic payment company Pay, Pal and founded the spacecraft company Area, X.
Elon Musk founded Area, X, a company that makes rockets and spacecraft. He ended up being the primary executive officer and a significant funder of Tesla, that makes electrical automobiles. Musk was born to a South African dad and a Canadian mom. He showed an early talent for computers and entrepreneurship. At age 12 he created a video game and sold it to a computer magazine. In 1988, after obtaining 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 chances readily 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 got bachelor's degrees in physics and economics in 1997.
In 1995 he established Zip2, a business that provided maps and business directory sites to online papers. In 1999 Zip2 was bought by the computer system producer Compaq for $307 million, and Musk then established an online monetary services company, X.com, which later became Pay, Buddy, which focused on transferring cash online. The online auction e, Bay bought Pay, Buddy in 2002 for $1. 5 billion. Musk was long persuaded that for life to survive, humanity has to become a multiplanet species. However, he was disappointed with the fantastic expenditure of rocket launchers. In 2002 he established Area Exploration Technologies (Space, X) to make more budget-friendly rockets.
A third rocket, the Falcon Heavy (first launched in 2018), was developed to carry 117,000 pounds (53,000 kg) to orbit, nearly twice as much as its biggest competitor, the Boeing Company's Delta IV Heavy, for one-third the expense. Area, X has actually revealed the follower to the Falcon 9 and the Falcon Heavy: the Super Heavy, Starship system. The Super Heavy very first phase 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 supplying quick transport in between cities in the world and constructing bases on the Moon and Mars.
Dragon can bring as numerous as 7 astronauts, and it had a crewed flight bring astronauts Doug Hurley and Robert Behnken to the ISS in 2020. Musk looked for to reduce the expenditure of spaceflight by establishing a fully reusable rocket that might raise off and go back to the pad it introduced from. Starting in 2012, Area, X's Grasshopper rocket made a number of short flights to evaluate such innovation. In addition to being CEO of Area, X, Musk was likewise primary designer in developing the Falcon rockets, Dragon, and Grasshopper. Get a Britannica Premium membership and gain access to unique material. Subscribe Now Musk had actually long had an interest in the possibilities of electrical vehicles, and in 2004 he turned into one of the significant funders of Tesla Motors (later renamed Tesla), an electrical car company established by entrepreneurs Martin Eberhard and Marc Tarpenning.