Video released by spacecraft maker Space, 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 entrepreneur who cofounded the electronic-payment company Pay, Pal and formed Space, X, maker of launch cars and spacecraft. He was likewise one of the very first considerable investors in, along with president of, the electrical vehicle producer Tesla. Top Questions, Elon Musk was born on June 28, 1971. Elon Musk cofounded the electronic payment firm Pay, Pal and established the spacecraft business Space, X.
Elon Musk established Area, X, a business that makes rockets and spacecraft. He ended up being the president and a significant funder of Tesla, that makes electrical cars. Musk was born to a South African daddy and a Canadian mother. He displayed an early skill for computers and entrepreneurship. At age 12 he produced a computer game and offered it to a computer magazine. In 1988, after acquiring a Canadian passport, Musk left South Africa because he hesitated to support apartheid through obligatory military service and due to the fact that he sought the higher financial opportunities readily available in the United States. Musk participated in Click here! 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 company directory sites to online papers. In 1999 Zip2 was purchased by the computer producer Compaq for $307 million, and Musk then established an online monetary services business, X.com, which later became Pay, Friend, which specialized in moving money online. The online auction e, Bay purchased Pay, Buddy in 2002 for $1. 5 billion. Musk was long convinced that for life to make it through, humankind has to become a multiplanet species. Nevertheless, he was disappointed with the great expense of rocket launchers. In 2002 he founded Space Exploration Technologies (Space, X) to make more affordable rockets.
A 3rd rocket, the Falcon Heavy (initially introduced in 2018), was designed to carry 117,000 pounds (53,000 kg) to orbit, nearly twice as much as its biggest competitor, the Boeing Business'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 stage would be capable of raising 100,000 kg (220,000 pounds) to low Earth orbit. The payload would be the Starship, a spacecraft created for providing fast transportation between cities in the world and building bases on the Moon and Mars.
Dragon can bring as lots of as seven astronauts, and it had a crewed flight bring astronauts Doug Hurley and Robert Behnken to the ISS in 2020. Musk looked for to lower the cost of spaceflight by developing a fully recyclable rocket that could lift off and return to the pad it released from. Starting in 2012, Space, X's Grasshopper rocket made a number of short flights to check such technology. In addition to being CEO of Area, X, Musk was also primary designer in constructing the Falcon rockets, Dragon, and Grasshopper. Get a Britannica Premium membership and gain access to unique content. Subscribe Now Musk had long had an interest in the possibilities of electrical vehicles, and in 2004 he ended up being one of the major funders of Tesla Motors (later on renamed Tesla), an electrical car business established by entrepreneurs Martin Eberhard and Marc Tarpenning.