Video launched by spacecraft maker Area, X commemorating its Dragon pill, which on May 25, 2012, ended up being the very first industrial spacecraft to dock with the International Spaceport Station. Area, X (A Britannica Publishing Partner), (born June 28, 1971, Pretoria, South Africa), South African-born American entrepreneur who cofounded the electronic-payment company Pay, Friend and formed Area, X, maker of launch cars and spacecraft. He was also among the first significant investors in, in addition to president of, the electrical cars and truck manufacturer Tesla. Top Questions, Elon Musk was born on June 28, 1971. Elon Musk cofounded the electronic payment firm Pay, Buddy and founded the spacecraft business Area, X.
Elon Musk established Space, X, a company that makes rockets and spacecraft. He ended up being the ceo and a major funder of Tesla, that makes electric vehicles. Musk was born to a South African dad and a Canadian mother. He displayed an early talent for computer systems and entrepreneurship. At age 12 he developed a computer game and offered it to a computer system magazine. In 1988, after obtaining a Canadian passport, Musk left South Africa since he was reluctant to support apartheid through compulsory military service and since he sought the greater economic opportunities available 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 company that supplied maps and company directory sites to online papers. In 1999 Zip2 was purchased by the computer system manufacturer Compaq for $307 million, and Musk then founded an online financial services business, X.com, which later on became Pay, Buddy, which focused on moving money online. The online auction e, Bay bought Pay, Buddy in 2002 for $1. 5 billion. Musk was long persuaded that for life to make it through, humankind has to end up being a multiplanet species. However, he was dissatisfied with the terrific expense of rocket launchers. In 2002 he founded Space Expedition Technologies (Area, X) to make more inexpensive rockets.
A third rocket, the Falcon Heavy (initially introduced in 2018), was designed to carry 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. Area, X has revealed the follower to the Falcon 9 and the Falcon Heavy: the Super Heavy, Starship system. The Super Heavy very first phase would be capable of lifting 100,000 kg (220,000 pounds) to low Earth orbit. The payload would be the Starship, a spacecraft designed for offering quick transport in between cities in the world 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 sought to lower the expense of spaceflight by establishing a fully multiple-use rocket that could check here take off and go back to the pad it released from. Beginning in 2012, Space, X's Grasshopper rocket made several short flights to check such technology. In addition to being CEO of Space, X, Musk was likewise chief designer in constructing the Falcon rockets, Dragon, and Grasshopper. Get a Britannica Premium membership and gain access to unique content. Subscribe Now Musk had long had an interest in the possibilities of electrical cars and trucks, and in 2004 he turned into one of the major funders of Tesla Motors (later renamed Tesla), an electric automobile business established by business owners Martin Eberhard and Marc Tarpenning.