Video launched by spacecraft maker Space, X commemorating its Dragon pill, which on May 25, 2012, became the first business 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, Friend and formed Space, X, maker of launch automobiles and spacecraft. He was also one of the very first substantial investors in, along with president of, the electrical automobile producer Tesla. Top Concerns, Elon Musk was born on June 28, 1971. Elon Musk cofounded the electronic payment company Pay, Pal and established the spacecraft company Area, X.
Elon Musk established Space, X, a business that makes rockets and spacecraft. He ended up being the ceo and a major funder of Tesla, which makes electrical cars. Musk was born to a South African dad and a Canadian mom. He showed an early skill for computers and entrepreneurship. At age 12 he produced a computer game and offered it to a computer system publication. In 1988, after acquiring a Canadian passport, Musk left South Africa because he hesitated to support apartheid through required military service and due to the fact that he sought the higher economic chances readily available in the United States. Musk attended 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 founded Zip2, a company that supplied maps and service directory sites to online newspapers. In 1999 Zip2 was purchased by the computer maker Compaq for $307 million, and Musk then established an online financial services business, X.com, which later on ended up being Pay, Friend, which focused on moving cash online. The online auction e, Bay purchased Pay, Buddy in 2002 for $1. 5 billion. Musk was long convinced that for life to survive, humanity needs to end up being a multiplanet types. However, he was disappointed with the great cost of rocket launchers. In 2002 he founded Space Exploration Technologies (Area, X) to make more affordable rockets.
A 3rd rocket, the Falcon Heavy (initially launched in 2018), was created to bring 117,000 pounds (53,000 kg) to orbit, nearly twice as much as its biggest competitor, the Boeing Business'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 can lifting 100,000 kg (220,000 pounds) to low Earth orbit. The payload would be the Starship, a spacecraft created for providing fast transportation in between cities on Earth and building bases on the Moon and Mars.
Dragon can bring as many as seven 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 developing a totally multiple-use rocket that might take off and return to the pad it launched from. Starting in 2012, Area, X's Grasshopper rocket made a number of short flights to evaluate such innovation. In addition to being CEO of Area, X, Musk was likewise primary designer in constructing the Falcon rockets, Dragon, and Insect. Get a Britannica Premium subscription and gain access to unique material. Subscribe Now Musk had actually long been interested in the possibilities of electrical automobiles, and in 2004 he became one of the major funders of Tesla Motors (later on renamed Tesla), an electrical vehicle company founded by business owners Martin Eberhard and Marc Tarpenning.