Video released by spacecraft maker Area, X commemorating its Dragon pill, which on May 25, 2012, became the first commercial 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 entrepreneur who cofounded the electronic-payment firm Pay, Buddy and formed Area, X, maker of launch vehicles and spacecraft. He was likewise among the first substantial investors in, as well as ceo of, the electric automobile producer Tesla. Leading Questions, Elon Musk was born on June 28, 1971. Elon Musk cofounded the electronic payment firm Pay, Friend and founded the spacecraft business Space, X.
Elon Musk founded Space, X, a company 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 dad Have a peek here and a Canadian mother. He showed an early talent for computers and entrepreneurship. At age 12 he created a video game and offered it to a computer magazine. In 1988, after getting a Canadian passport, Musk left South Africa since he was unwilling to support apartheid through required military service and since he sought 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 received bachelor's degrees in physics and economics in 1997.
In 1995 he established Zip2, a business that offered maps and service directory sites to online newspapers. In 1999 Zip2 was purchased by the computer system maker Compaq for $307 million, and Musk then established an online monetary services company, X.com, which later on became Pay, Friend, which concentrated on transferring money online. The online auction e, Bay purchased Pay, Friend in 2002 for $1. 5 billion. Musk was long convinced that for life to endure, mankind has to become a multiplanet species. However, he was disappointed with the terrific expenditure of rocket launchers. In 2002 he founded Space Exploration Technologies (Space, X) to make more cost effective rockets.
A third rocket, the Falcon Heavy (initially introduced in 2018), was created to bring 117,000 pounds (53,000 kg) to orbit, nearly twice as much as its biggest competitor, the Boeing Company's Delta IV Heavy, for one-third the expense. Area, X has actually revealed the follower 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 developed for supplying fast transportation between cities on Earth Go here 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 lower the cost of spaceflight by establishing a completely reusable rocket that could lift off and return to the pad it launched from. Beginning in 2012, Area, X's Insect rocket made a number of brief flights to check such innovation. In addition to being CEO of Area, X, Musk was likewise chief designer in constructing the Falcon rockets, Dragon, and Insect. Get a Britannica Premium subscription and gain access to unique content. Subscribe Now Musk had long been interested in the possibilities of electrical cars and trucks, and in 2004 he turned into one of the major funders of Tesla Motors (later on renamed Tesla), an electrical car business founded by business owners Martin Eberhard and Marc Tarpenning.