Video launched by spacecraft maker Space, X celebrating its Dragon pill, 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 likewise among the first significant investors in, along with primary executive officer of, the electric automobile producer Tesla. Leading Concerns, Elon Musk was born upon June 28, 1971. Elon Musk cofounded the electronic payment firm Pay, Pal and established the spacecraft business Area, X.
Elon Musk established Space, 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 father and a Canadian mom. He showed an early talent for computer systems and entrepreneurship. At age 12 he developed a computer game and sold it to a computer system publication. In 1988, after getting a Canadian passport, Musk left South Africa due to the fact that he was unwilling to support apartheid through required military service and due to the fact that he looked for the higher financial chances readily available 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 received bachelor's degrees in physics and economics in 1997.
In 1995 he founded Zip2, a company that provided maps and service directories to online papers. In 1999 Zip2 was bought by the computer system maker Compaq for $307 million, and Musk then founded an online financial services business, X.com, which later on became Pay, Pal, which specialized in moving money online. The online auction e, Bay purchased Pay, Friend in 2002 for $1. 5 billion. Musk was long persuaded that for life to endure, humanity needs to end up being a multiplanet species. Nevertheless, he was dissatisfied with the terrific cost of rocket launchers. In 2002 he founded Space Expedition Technologies (Space, X) to make more affordable rockets.
A third rocket, the Falcon Heavy (first launched in 2018), was created to carry 117,000 pounds (53,000 kg) to orbit, almost twice as much as its largest competitor, the Boeing Business's Delta IV Heavy, for one-third the cost. Area, X has revealed the successor to the Falcon 9 and the Falcon Heavy: the Super Heavy, Starship system. The Super Heavy first phase would can lifting 100,000 kg (220,000 pounds) to low Earth orbit. The payload would be the Starship, a spacecraft developed 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 sought to reduce the cost of spaceflight by developing a totally multiple-use rocket that could take off and return to the pad it introduced from. Starting in 2012, Space, X's Insect rocket made a number of brief flights to test 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 special content. Subscribe Now Musk had actually long been interested in the possibilities of electric vehicles, and in 2004 he ended up being one of the major funders of Tesla Motors (later relabelled Tesla), an electric vehicle company established by business owners Martin Eberhard and Marc Tarpenning.