Video launched by spacecraft maker Area, X commemorating its Dragon capsule, 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 firm Pay, Buddy and formed Area, X, maker of launch lorries and spacecraft. He was also one of the very first significant financiers in, along with chief executive officer of, the electrical cars and truck maker Tesla. Leading Questions, Elon Musk was born on June 28, 1971. Elon Musk cofounded the electronic payment company Pay, Buddy and founded the spacecraft company Space, X.
Elon Musk founded Space, X, a business that makes rockets and spacecraft. He became the president and a significant funder of Tesla, which makes electric cars and trucks. Musk was born to a South African dad and a Canadian mom. He displayed an early skill for computer systems and entrepreneurship. At age 12 he developed a video game and sold it to a computer system publication. In 1988, after getting a Canadian passport, Musk left South Africa due to the fact that he hesitated to support apartheid through mandatory military service and since he looked for the higher financial chances offered 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 business directories to online newspapers. In 1999 Zip2 was purchased by the computer system manufacturer Compaq for $307 million, and Musk then founded an online financial services company, X.com, which later on ended up being Pay, Buddy, which specialized in moving money online. The online auction e, Bay bought Pay, Buddy in 2002 for $1. 5 billion. Musk was long convinced that for life to make it through, humankind needs to end up being a multiplanet species. However, he was dissatisfied with the terrific cost of rocket launchers. In 2002 he founded Area Expedition Technologies (Area, X) to make more affordable rockets.
A third rocket, the Falcon Heavy (first launched in 2018), was designed to bring 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 announced the follower 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 designed for providing fast transport 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 looked for to minimize the expense of spaceflight by establishing a fully recyclable rocket that could take off and return to the pad it released from. Starting in 2012, Space, X's Grasshopper rocket made several brief flights to test such technology. In addition to being CEO of Area, X, Musk was also chief designer in constructing the Falcon rockets, Dragon, and Grasshopper. Get a Britannica Premium subscription and gain access to unique content. Subscribe Now Musk had actually long been interested in the possibilities of electric vehicles, and in 2004 he ended up being one of the major funders of Tesla Motors (later renamed Tesla), an electric automobile company founded by entrepreneurs Martin Eberhard and Marc Tarpenning.