Video launched by spacecraft maker Space, X commemorating its Dragon capsule, which on May 25, 2012, ended up being the very first business 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 business owner who cofounded the electronic-payment company Pay, Friend and formed Space, X, maker of launch vehicles and spacecraft. He was also one of the first substantial financiers in, along with chief executive officer of, the electrical car manufacturer Tesla. Top Concerns, Elon Musk was born upon June 28, 1971. Elon Musk cofounded the electronic payment firm Pay, Friend and founded the spacecraft business Space, X.
Elon Musk established Area, X, a business that makes rockets and spacecraft. He became the ceo and a major funder of Tesla, which makes electric cars. Musk was born to a South African Homepage daddy and a Canadian mother. He displayed an early talent for computer systems and entrepreneurship. At age 12 he created a computer game and offered it to a computer magazine. In 1988, after acquiring a Canadian passport, Musk left South Africa since he was reluctant to support apartheid through required military service and due to the fact that he looked for the higher financial opportunities 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 established Zip2, a company that offered maps and business directories to online papers. In 1999 Zip2 was purchased by the computer manufacturer Compaq for $307 million, and Musk then founded an online monetary services business, X.com, which later on ended up being Pay, Pal, which focused on moving money online. The online auction e, Bay purchased Pay, Pal in 2002 for $1. 5 billion. Musk was long convinced that for life to survive, humanity needs to become a multiplanet species. Nevertheless, he was dissatisfied with the fantastic expense of rocket launchers. In 2002 he founded Space Exploration Technologies (Area, X) to make more economical rockets.
A 3rd rocket, the Falcon Heavy (initially introduced in 2018), was designed to bring 117,000 pounds (53,000 kg) to orbit, almost twice as much as its largest rival, the Boeing Company's Delta IV Heavy, for one-third the cost. Space, X has actually revealed the successor to the Falcon 9 and the Falcon Heavy: the Visit this site Super Heavy, Starship system. The Super Heavy first phase would can raising 100,000 kg (220,000 pounds) to low Earth orbit. The payload would be the Starship, a spacecraft designed for offering fast transport in between cities in the world and constructing bases on the Moon and Mars.
Dragon can carry as many 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 reduce the expense of spaceflight by developing a completely multiple-use rocket that could lift off and return to the pad it launched from. Beginning in 2012, Space, X's Insect rocket made numerous short flights to test such technology. In addition to being CEO of Space, X, Musk was likewise chief designer in building the Falcon rockets, Dragon, and Insect. Get a Britannica Premium subscription and gain access to exclusive material. Subscribe Now Musk had long had an interest in the possibilities of electrical cars and trucks, and in 2004 he became one of the major funders of Tesla Motors (later on relabelled Tesla), an electric cars and truck Find out more company founded by entrepreneurs Martin Eberhard and Marc Tarpenning.