Video released by spacecraft maker Space, X celebrating its Dragon pill, which on May 25, 2012, ended up being the first business 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 company Pay, Friend and formed Space, X, maker of launch automobiles and spacecraft. He was likewise one of the very first substantial investors in, in addition to president of, the electric automobile producer Tesla. Leading Questions, Elon Musk was born on June 28, 1971. Elon Musk cofounded the electronic payment company Pay, Pal and founded the spacecraft company Area, X.
Elon Musk founded Area, X, a company that makes rockets and spacecraft. He became the president and a major funder of Tesla, that makes electric cars and trucks. Musk was born to a South African dad and a Canadian mom. He displayed an early talent for computer systems and entrepreneurship. At age 12 he produced a computer game and sold it to a computer system magazine. In 1988, after obtaining a Canadian passport, Musk left South Africa due to the fact that he was unwilling to support apartheid through compulsory military service and because he looked for the greater economic chances offered in the United States. Musk went to 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 business that offered maps and business directories to online papers. In 1999 Zip2 was bought by the computer system producer Compaq for $307 million, and Musk then established an online monetary services business, X.com, which later became Pay, Friend, which concentrated on transferring cash online. The online auction e, Bay purchased Pay, Friend in 2002 for $1. 5 billion. Musk was long convinced that for life to make it through, humankind has to end up being a multiplanet species. However, he was disappointed with the terrific expense of rocket launchers. In 2002 he established Area Expedition Technologies (Space, X) to make more inexpensive rockets.
A third 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 largest 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 very first phase would can raising 100,000 kg (220,000 pounds) to low Earth orbit. The payload would be the Starship, a spacecraft developed for offering fast transportation between cities in the world and developing bases on the Moon and Mars.
Dragon can bring as many 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 reduce the expense of spaceflight by developing a completely multiple-use rocket that could take off and go back to the pad it released from. Beginning in 2012, Space, X's Grasshopper rocket made numerous short flights to test such innovation. In addition to being CEO of Space, X, Musk was also primary designer in constructing the Falcon rockets, Dragon, and Insect. Get a Britannica Premium subscription and gain access to unique content. Subscribe Now Musk had long had an interest in the possibilities of electrical vehicles, and in 2004 he became one of the major funders of Tesla Motors (later on renamed Tesla), an electrical cars and truck company founded by entrepreneurs Martin Eberhard and Marc Tarpenning.