Video released by spacecraft maker Space, X celebrating its Dragon pill, which on May 25, 2012, became the first business spacecraft to dock with the International Spaceport Station. Space, X (A Britannica Publishing Partner), (born June 28, 1971, Pretoria, South https://tfsites.blob.core.windows.net Africa), South African-born American business owner who cofounded the electronic-payment company Pay, Pal and formed Area, X, maker of launch lorries and spacecraft. He was also among the very first considerable financiers in, in addition to primary executive officer of, the electrical car manufacturer Tesla. Top Questions, 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 became the ceo and a major funder of Tesla, that makes electrical cars and trucks. Musk was born to a South African father and a Canadian mom. He displayed an early talent for computers and entrepreneurship. At age 12 he developed a computer game and offered it to a computer system publication. In 1988, after getting a Canadian passport, Musk left South Africa since he was reluctant to support apartheid through obligatory military service and because 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 moved 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 service directories to online newspapers. In 1999 Zip2 was bought by the computer system maker Compaq for $307 million, and Musk then founded an online monetary services company, X.com, which later became Pay, Pal, which focused on moving money 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 needs to end up being a multiplanet species. Nevertheless, he was disappointed with the terrific expense of rocket launchers. In 2002 he founded Space Exploration Technologies (Area, X) to make more economical rockets.
A third rocket, the Falcon Heavy (first launched in 2018), was developed to bring 117,000 pounds (53,000 kg) to orbit, nearly two times as much as its largest rival, 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 be capable of raising 100,000 kg (220,000 pounds) to low Earth orbit. The payload would be the Starship, a spacecraft designed for supplying fast transport in between cities on Earth and building bases on the Moon and Mars.
Dragon can carry as many as 7 astronauts, and it had a crewed flight carrying astronauts Doug Hurley and Robert Behnken to the ISS in 2020. Musk sought to reduce the cost of spaceflight by establishing a fully recyclable rocket that could take off and return to the pad it introduced from. Beginning in 2012, Space, X's Insect rocket made a number of short flights to evaluate 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 material. Subscribe Now Musk had long had an interest in the possibilities of electric vehicles, and in 2004 he turned into one of the significant funders of Tesla Motors (later relabelled Tesla), an electric automobile company founded by business owners Martin Eberhard and Marc Tarpenning.