Video launched by spacecraft maker Space, X commemorating its Dragon capsule, which on May 25, 2012, became the very first industrial 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, Pal and formed Area, X, maker of launch lorries and spacecraft. He was also one of the very first considerable investors in, as well as president of, the electric automobile producer Tesla. Leading Questions, Elon Musk was born on June 28, 1971. Elon Musk cofounded the electronic payment company Pay, Friend and established the spacecraft business Space, X.
Elon Musk founded Area, X, a business that makes rockets and spacecraft. He became the ceo 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 system publication. In 1988, after acquiring a Canadian passport, Musk left South Africa due to the fact that he hesitated to support apartheid Great site through obligatory military service and due to the fact that he looked for the greater economic opportunities offered in the United States. Musk participated in 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 provided maps and company directories to online papers. In 1999 Zip2 was purchased by the computer producer Compaq for $307 million, and Musk then founded an online monetary services business, X.com, which later on ended up being Pay, Friend, which concentrated on moving money online. The online auction e, Bay bought Pay, Pal in 2002 for $1. 5 billion. Musk was long persuaded that for life to survive, humanity has to Check out this site become a multiplanet types. Nevertheless, he was dissatisfied with the terrific expenditure of rocket launchers. In 2002 he founded Area Expedition Technologies (Area, X) to make more affordable rockets.
A third rocket, the Falcon Heavy (initially released in 2018), was designed to bring 117,000 pounds (53,000 kg) to orbit, nearly twice as much as its largest Find more information competitor, the Boeing Company's Delta IV Heavy, for one-third the expense. Space, X has announced the successor to the Falcon 9 and the Falcon Heavy: the Super Heavy, Starship system. The Super Heavy very first stage would can lifting 100,000 kg (220,000 pounds) to low Earth orbit. The payload would be the Starship, a spacecraft developed for providing fast transportation between cities on Earth and building bases on the Moon and Mars.
Dragon can carry as numerous as 7 astronauts, and it had a crewed flight carrying astronauts Doug Hurley and Robert Behnken to the ISS in 2020. Musk looked for to reduce the expenditure of spaceflight by developing a totally multiple-use rocket that might take off and go back to the pad it launched from. Starting in 2012, Area, X's Insect rocket made a number of brief flights to evaluate such technology. In addition to being CEO of Space, X, Musk was also chief designer in building 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 on renamed Tesla), an electrical vehicle business founded by business owners Martin Eberhard and Marc Tarpenning.