Video launched by spacecraft maker Area, X celebrating its Dragon capsule, which on May 25, 2012, became the 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, Buddy and formed Space, X, maker of launch cars and spacecraft. He was also among the first significant financiers in, in addition to primary executive officer of, the electric cars and truck manufacturer Tesla. Top Concerns, Elon Musk was born upon June 28, 1971. Elon Musk cofounded the electronic payment company Pay, Friend and founded the spacecraft business Space, X.
Elon Musk established Area, X, a company that makes rockets and spacecraft. He became the president and a significant funder of Tesla, which makes electric automobiles. Musk was born to a South African daddy and a Canadian mother. He showed an early talent for computers and entrepreneurship. At age 12 he developed 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 obligatory military service and due to the fact that he sought the higher economic chances readily available in the United States. Musk attended 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 business directory sites to online newspapers. In 1999 Zip2 was bought by the computer manufacturer Compaq for $307 million, and Musk then established an online financial services business, X.com, which later ended up being Pay, Buddy, which concentrated on moving cash online. The online auction e, Bay bought Pay, Pal in 2002 for $1. 5 billion. Musk was long convinced that for life to make it through, humankind needs to end up being a multiplanet types. However, he was disappointed with the excellent expense of rocket launchers. In 2002 he established Area Exploration Technologies (Area, X) to make more economical rockets.
A 3rd rocket, the Falcon Heavy (initially released in 2018), was developed to bring 117,000 pounds (53,000 kg) to orbit, almost two times as much as its biggest rival, the Boeing Business's Delta IV Heavy, for one-third the cost. Area, X has announced the follower 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 created for providing quick transportation between cities in the world and building bases on the Moon and Mars.
Dragon can bring as numerous 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 reduce the expenditure of spaceflight by developing a totally reusable rocket that might take off and return to the pad it introduced from. Starting in 2012, Space, X's Grasshopper rocket made a number of short flights to check such innovation. In addition to being CEO of Space, X, Musk was also primary designer in building the Falcon rockets, Dragon, and Insect. Get a Britannica Premium membership and gain access to exclusive material. Subscribe Now Musk had long been interested in the possibilities of electrical vehicles, and in 2004 he became one of the significant funders of Tesla Motors (later on relabelled Tesla), an electrical cars and truck business founded by business owners Martin Eberhard and Marc Tarpenning.