Video launched by spacecraft maker Area, X commemorating its Dragon pill, which on May 25, 2012, became the first commercial spacecraft to dock with the International Space 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 firm Pay, Buddy and formed Area, X, maker of launch lorries and spacecraft. He was likewise one of the very first considerable financiers in, in addition to president of, the electric cars and truck producer Tesla. Top Concerns, Elon Musk was born on June 28, 1971. Elon Musk cofounded the electronic payment firm Pay, Pal and founded the spacecraft company Area, X.
Elon Musk founded Area, X, a business that makes rockets and spacecraft. He ended up being the ceo and a significant funder of Tesla, that makes electric cars and trucks. Musk was born to a South African daddy and a Canadian mother. He showed an early skill for computer systems and entrepreneurship. At age 12 he developed a video game and sold it to a computer system magazine. In 1988, after acquiring a Canadian passport, Musk left South Africa because he was reluctant to support apartheid through compulsory military service and due to the fact that he looked for 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 established Zip2, a company that supplied maps and company directory sites to online newspapers. In 1999 Zip2 was purchased by the computer producer Compaq for $307 million, and Musk then established an online financial services business, X.com, which later on ended up being Pay, Pal, which focused on moving cash online. The online auction e, Bay bought Pay, Friend in 2002 for $1. 5 billion. Musk was long convinced that for life to endure, mankind has to become a multiplanet species. Nevertheless, he was dissatisfied with the terrific expenditure of rocket launchers. In 2002 he founded Space Expedition Technologies (Space, X) to make more inexpensive rockets.
A 3rd rocket, the Falcon Heavy (initially released in 2018), was developed 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 cost. 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 be capable of raising 100,000 kg (220,000 pounds) to low Earth orbit. The payload would be the Starship, a spacecraft developed for supplying fast transport in between cities in the world and developing bases on the Moon and Mars.
Dragon can carry as numerous 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 lower the cost of spaceflight by developing a totally recyclable rocket that might take off and return to the pad it launched from. Beginning in 2012, Area, X's Grasshopper rocket made several brief flights to test such technology. In addition to being CEO of Space, X, Musk was also chief designer in developing the Falcon rockets, Dragon, and Grasshopper. Get a Britannica Premium membership and gain access to special content. Subscribe Now Musk had long had an interest in the possibilities of electrical cars, and in You can find out more 2004 he turned into one of the significant funders of Tesla Motors (later on renamed Tesla), an electric automobile business founded by entrepreneurs Martin Eberhard and Marc Tarpenning.