Video released by spacecraft maker Area, X commemorating its Dragon capsule, 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 entrepreneur who cofounded the electronic-payment company Pay, Pal and formed Space, X, maker of launch cars and spacecraft. He was also among the first considerable investors in, in addition to primary executive officer of, the electrical cars and truck maker Tesla. Top Concerns, Elon Musk was born on 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 business that makes rockets and spacecraft. He became the president and a significant funder of Tesla, that makes electrical vehicles. Musk was born to a South African dad and a Canadian mother. He showed an early skill for computer systems and entrepreneurship. At age 12 he produced a video game and offered it to elon musk baby name a computer publication. In 1988, after obtaining a Canadian passport, Musk left South Africa since he hesitated to support apartheid through compulsory military service and because he sought the higher economic opportunities offered in the United States. Musk participated in 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 established Zip2, a business that offered maps and business directories to online papers. In 1999 Zip2 was purchased by the computer system manufacturer Compaq for $307 million, and Musk then established an online financial services business, X.com, which later on ended up being Pay, Buddy, which focused on transferring money online. The online auction e, Bay bought Pay, Friend in 2002 for $1. 5 billion. Musk was long convinced that for life to survive, humanity has to become a multiplanet species. Nevertheless, he was dissatisfied with the fantastic cost of rocket launchers. In 2002 he established Area Exploration Technologies (Area, X) to make more budget friendly rockets.
A third rocket, the Falcon Heavy (initially launched in 2018), was developed to carry 117,000 pounds (53,000 kg) to orbit, nearly twice as much as its largest competitor, the Boeing Company's Delta IV Heavy, for one-third the cost. Space, X has actually announced the follower to the Falcon 9 and the Falcon Heavy: the Super Heavy, Starship system. The Super Heavy very first stage would be capable of raising 100,000 kg (220,000 pounds) to low Earth orbit. The payload would be the Starship, a spacecraft created for offering quick transportation in between cities on Earth and constructing bases on the Moon and Mars.
Dragon can carry as numerous as 7 astronauts, and it had a crewed flight bring astronauts Doug Hurley and Robert Behnken to the ISS in 2020. Musk looked for to minimize the expenditure of spaceflight by establishing a completely recyclable rocket that could take off and go back to the pad it released from. Beginning in 2012, Area, X's Grasshopper rocket made numerous brief flights to test such innovation. In addition to being CEO of Space, X, Musk was likewise primary designer in developing the Falcon rockets, Dragon, and Grasshopper. Get a Britannica Premium subscription and gain access to special content. Subscribe Now Musk had actually long been interested in the possibilities of electric automobiles, and in 2004 he turned into one of the major funders of Tesla Motors (later on relabelled Tesla), an electrical vehicle business founded by entrepreneurs Martin Eberhard and Marc Tarpenning.