Video released by spacecraft maker Space, X commemorating its Dragon pill, which on May 25, 2012, became the very first commercial spacecraft to dock with the International Area 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, Pal and formed Area, X, maker of launch vehicles and spacecraft. He was also one of the very first considerable financiers in, as well as president of, the electrical cars and truck producer Tesla. Leading Concerns, Elon Musk was born upon June 28, 1971. Elon Musk cofounded the electronic payment firm Pay, Buddy and established the spacecraft company Area, X.
Elon Musk founded Area, X, a company that makes rockets and spacecraft. He became the primary executive officer and a major funder of Tesla, which makes electrical cars and trucks. Musk was born to a South African father and a Canadian mother. He displayed an early talent for computers and entrepreneurship. At age 12 he produced a computer game and sold it to a computer system magazine. In 1988, after getting a Canadian passport, Musk left South Africa because he was unwilling to support apartheid through compulsory military service and due to the fact that he looked for the higher financial chances offered 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 company that offered maps and business directories to online newspapers. In 1999 Zip2 was bought by the computer system producer Compaq for $307 million, and Musk then established an online financial 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, Pal in 2002 for $1. 5 billion. Musk was long persuaded that for life to survive, humankind has to become a multiplanet types. However, he was disappointed with the terrific expense of rocket launchers. In 2002 he founded Area Expedition Technologies (Area, X) to make more budget-friendly rockets.
A 3rd rocket, the Falcon Heavy (initially released in 2018), was designed to carry 117,000 pounds (53,000 kg) to orbit, almost twice as much as its biggest competitor, the Boeing Business's Delta IV Heavy, for one-third the cost. Space, X has revealed the successor to the Falcon 9 and the Falcon Heavy: the Super Heavy, Starship system. The Super Heavy first stage 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 providing fast transportation in between cities in the world and building bases on the Moon and Mars.
Dragon can bring as lots of as seven astronauts, and it had a crewed flight carrying astronauts Doug Hurley and Robert Behnken to the ISS in 2020. Musk looked for to lower the expenditure of spaceflight by developing a totally recyclable rocket that might take off and go back to the pad it introduced from. Beginning in 2012, Area, X's Grasshopper rocket made numerous short flights to test such innovation. 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 special content. Subscribe Now Musk had long been interested in the possibilities of electrical cars, and in 2004 he ended up being one of the major funders of Tesla Motors (later on renamed Tesla), an electrical vehicle business established by business owners Martin Eberhard and Marc Tarpenning.