Video released by spacecraft maker Space, X commemorating its Dragon capsule, which on May 25, 2012, ended up being the very first industrial 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 company Pay, Buddy and formed Area, X, maker of launch cars and spacecraft. He was likewise among the first substantial financiers in, as well as president of, the electrical cars and truck manufacturer Tesla. Leading Questions, Elon Musk was born upon June 28, 1971. Elon Musk cofounded the electronic payment company Pay, Buddy and established the spacecraft company Space, X.
Elon Musk founded Area, X, a company More help that makes rockets and spacecraft. He ended up being the chief executive officer and a significant funder of Tesla, which makes electric cars. Musk was born to a South African father and a Canadian mother. He showed an early skill for computer systems and entrepreneurship. At age 12 he developed a video game and offered it to a computer system magazine. In 1988, after obtaining a Canadian passport, Musk left South Africa since he was unwilling to support apartheid through mandatory military service and since he sought the greater economic 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 got bachelor's degrees in physics and economics in 1997.
In 1995 he established Zip2, a business that offered maps and company directory sites to online papers. In 1999 Zip2 was purchased by the computer system maker Compaq for $307 million, and Musk then established an online monetary services business, X.com, which later ended up being Pay, Buddy, which specialized in moving money online. The online auction e, Bay purchased Pay, Friend in 2002 for $1. 5 billion. Musk was long persuaded that for life to endure, humankind has to become a multiplanet species. Nevertheless, he was disappointed with the great cost of rocket launchers. In 2002 he established Area Exploration Technologies (Space, X) to make more affordable rockets.
A third rocket, the Falcon Heavy (first launched in 2018), was created to bring 117,000 pounds (53,000 kg) to orbit, nearly twice as much as its largest rival, the Boeing Company'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 supplying fast transportation in between cities in the world and building bases on the Moon and Mars.
Dragon can carry as lots of as 7 astronauts, and it had a crewed flight bring astronauts Doug Hurley and Robert Behnken to the ISS in 2020. Musk sought to decrease the expense of spaceflight by establishing a fully reusable rocket that might lift off and return to the pad it introduced from. Beginning in 2012, Area, X's Insect rocket made a number of short flights to evaluate such technology. In addition to being CEO of Area, X, Musk was also primary designer in building the Falcon rockets, Dragon, and Grasshopper. Get a Britannica Premium membership and gain access to exclusive content. Subscribe Now Musk had actually long been interested in the possibilities of electric cars and trucks, and in 2004 he turned into one of the significant funders of Tesla Motors (later renamed Tesla), an electric cars and truck business founded by entrepreneurs Martin Eberhard and Marc Tarpenning.