Video released by spacecraft maker Area, X celebrating its Dragon pill, which on May 25, 2012, ended up being the very first industrial spacecraft to dock with the International Area 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 Space, X, maker of launch automobiles and spacecraft. He was likewise among the first significant financiers in, as well as president of, the electrical cars and truck manufacturer Tesla. Top Questions, Elon Musk was born upon June 28, 1971. Elon Musk cofounded the electronic payment company Pay, Buddy and established the spacecraft company Area, X.
Elon Musk established Area, X, a business that makes rockets and spacecraft. He became the ceo and a significant funder of Tesla, which makes electrical automobiles. Musk was born to a South African daddy and a Canadian mother. He displayed an early talent for computer systems and entrepreneurship. At age 12 he produced 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 obligatory military service and since he sought the greater financial opportunities readily available in the United States. Musk went to 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 founded Zip2, a company that supplied maps and business directories to online papers. In 1999 Zip2 was bought by the computer system maker Compaq for $307 million, and Musk then founded an online monetary services business, X.com, which later on ended up being Pay, Buddy, which focused on moving money online. The online auction e, Bay bought Pay, Friend in 2002 for $1. 5 billion. Musk was long persuaded that for life to make it through, humankind has to end up being a multiplanet species. However, he was disappointed with the fantastic expenditure of rocket launchers. In 2002 he established Space Expedition Technologies (Area, X) to make more budget friendly rockets.
A 3rd rocket, the Falcon Heavy (first launched in 2018), was developed to bring 117,000 pounds (53,000 kg) to orbit, nearly twice as much as its largest rival, the Boeing Business's Delta IV Heavy, for one-third the cost. Area, X has revealed the successor to the Falcon 9 and the Falcon Heavy: the Super Heavy, Starship system. The Super Heavy 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 on Earth and constructing bases on the Moon and Mars.
Dragon can carry as numerous as seven astronauts, and it had a crewed flight bring astronauts Doug Hurley and Robert Behnken to the ISS in 2020. Musk sought to minimize the expense of spaceflight by developing a completely reusable rocket that could take off and go back to the pad it introduced from. Beginning in 2012, Area, X's Grasshopper rocket made a number of brief flights to check such technology. In addition to being CEO of Area, X, Musk was also chief designer in building the Falcon rockets, Dragon, and Insect. Get a Britannica Premium membership and gain access to exclusive content. Subscribe Now Musk had actually long had an interest in the possibilities of electric cars and trucks, and in 2004 he turned into one of the major funders of Tesla Motors (later renamed Tesla), an electrical vehicle company established by entrepreneurs Martin Eberhard and Marc Tarpenning.