Video launched by spacecraft maker Space, X celebrating its Dragon pill, which on May 25, 2012, became the first commercial 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 vehicles and spacecraft. He was also among the first significant investors in, as well as chief executive officer of, the electric automobile manufacturer Tesla. Leading Questions, Elon Musk was born on June 28, 1971. Elon Musk cofounded the electronic payment firm Pay, Friend and founded the spacecraft business Space, X.
Elon Musk founded Space, X, a business that makes rockets and spacecraft. He became the president and a significant funder of Tesla, which makes electrical cars. Musk was born to a South African daddy and a Canadian mom. He displayed an early skill for computer systems and entrepreneurship. At age 12 he created a video game and offered it to a computer system publication. In 1988, after obtaining a Canadian passport, Musk left South Africa due to the fact that he hesitated to support apartheid through mandatory military service and due to the fact that he looked for the higher financial opportunities 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 got bachelor's degrees in physics and economics in 1997.
In 1995 he founded Zip2, a business that offered maps and company directories to online papers. In 1999 Zip2 was purchased by the computer system producer Compaq for $307 million, and Musk then founded an online financial services business, X.com, which later on ended up being Pay, Friend, which specialized in transferring cash online. The online auction e, Bay purchased Pay, Get more information Pal in 2002 for $1. 5 billion. Musk was long persuaded that for life to make it through, mankind has to end up being Click here a multiplanet types. However, he was disappointed with the terrific expense of rocket launchers. In 2002 he established Area Exploration Technologies (Space, X) to make more cost effective rockets.
A 3rd rocket, the Falcon Heavy (initially released in 2018), was created to carry 117,000 pounds (53,000 kg) to orbit, nearly two times as much as its largest competitor, the Boeing Company's Delta IV Heavy, for one-third the expense. Area, X has actually revealed the follower to the Falcon 9 and the Falcon Heavy: the Super Heavy, Starship system. The Super Heavy first stage would can raising 100,000 kg (220,000 pounds) to low Earth orbit. The payload would be the Starship, a spacecraft designed for offering quick transportation between cities on Earth and developing bases on the Moon and Mars.
Dragon can bring as many as 7 astronauts, and it had a crewed flight carrying astronauts Doug Hurley and Robert Behnken to the ISS in 2020. Musk looked for to minimize the expenditure of spaceflight by establishing a fully reusable rocket that could take off and go back to the pad it launched from. Beginning in 2012, Area, X's Grasshopper rocket made several brief flights to test such innovation. In addition to being CEO of Area, X, Musk was likewise chief designer in constructing the Falcon Informative post rockets, Dragon, and Grasshopper. Get a Britannica Premium subscription and gain access to exclusive content. Subscribe Now Musk had actually long been interested in the possibilities of electrical cars and trucks, and in 2004 he became one of the major funders of Tesla Motors (later renamed Tesla), an electric vehicle company established by entrepreneurs Martin Eberhard and Marc Tarpenning.