Video released by spacecraft maker Space, X commemorating its Dragon capsule, which on May 25, 2012, ended up being the very first commercial spacecraft to dock with the International Space 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 company Pay, Buddy and formed Area, X, maker of launch automobiles and spacecraft. He was also one of the first significant investors in, as well as ceo of, the electrical car manufacturer Tesla. Top Concerns, Elon Musk was born upon June 28, 1971. Elon Musk cofounded the electronic payment firm Pay, Pal and founded the spacecraft business Area, X.
Elon Musk established Space, X, a company that makes rockets and spacecraft. He became the ceo and a major funder of Tesla, that makes electric automobiles. Musk was born to a South African dad and a Canadian mom. He showed an early talent for computer systems and entrepreneurship. At age 12 he created a computer game and offered it to a computer publication. In 1988, after getting a Canadian passport, Musk left South Africa due to the fact that he was reluctant to support apartheid through compulsory military service and since he looked for the greater financial chances 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 business that supplied maps and organization directory sites to online newspapers. In 1999 Zip2 was bought by the computer maker Compaq for $307 million, and Musk then established an online financial services company, X.com, which later became Pay, Pal, which focused on moving cash online. The online auction e, Bay purchased Pay, Friend in 2002 for $1. 5 billion. Musk was long convinced that for life to survive, humanity has to become a multiplanet types. However, he was disappointed with the great cost of rocket launchers. In 2002 he established Space Expedition Technologies (Space, X) to make more inexpensive rockets.
A third rocket, the Falcon Heavy (first released in 2018), was created to bring 117,000 pounds (53,000 kg) to orbit, almost twice as much as its biggest rival, the Boeing Business's Delta IV Heavy, for one-third the expense. Space, X has actually announced the successor to the Falcon 9 and the Falcon Heavy: the Super Heavy, Starship system. The Super Heavy first stage would can lifting 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 on Earth and developing bases on the Moon and Mars.
Dragon can carry as numerous as seven astronauts, and it had a crewed flight carrying astronauts Doug Hurley and Robert Behnken to the ISS in 2020. Musk sought to decrease the expense of spaceflight by establishing a fully reusable rocket that might raise off and return to the pad it released from. Beginning in 2012, Space, X's Grasshopper rocket made several brief flights to evaluate such innovation. In addition to being CEO of Space, X, Musk was also primary designer in building the Falcon rockets, Dragon, and Grasshopper. Get a Britannica Premium membership and gain access to special material. Subscribe Now Musk had actually long had an interest in the possibilities of electrical vehicles, and in 2004 he turned into one of the major funders of Tesla Motors (later on relabelled Tesla), an electric cars and truck business established by business owners Martin Eberhard and Marc Tarpenning.