Video launched by spacecraft maker Space, X celebrating its Dragon pill, which on May 25, 2012, became the first industrial spacecraft to dock with the International Area Station. Space, X (A Britannica Publishing Partner), (born June 28, 1971, Pretoria, South Africa), South African-born American entrepreneur who cofounded the electronic-payment firm Pay, Friend and formed Space, X, maker of launch automobiles and spacecraft. He was also among the very first substantial investors in, as well as chief executive officer of, the electrical vehicle maker Tesla. Top Questions, Elon Musk was born on June 28, 1971. Elon Musk cofounded the electronic payment firm Pay, Pal and established the spacecraft business Area, X.
Elon Musk founded Area, X, a business that makes rockets and spacecraft. He became the primary executive officer and a major funder of Tesla, which makes electric cars and trucks. Musk was born to a South African dad and a Canadian mom. He showed an early talent for computers and entrepreneurship. At age 12 he produced a computer game and sold it to a computer magazine. In 1988, after obtaining a Canadian passport, Musk left South Africa since he was unwilling to support apartheid through compulsory military service and since he looked for the greater economic chances readily available in the United States. Musk participated in Queen's University in Kingston, Ontario, and in 1992 he transferred to the University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, where he got bachelor's degrees in physics and economics in 1997.
In 1995 he established Zip2, a company that offered maps and company directories to online papers. In 1999 Zip2 was bought by the computer manufacturer Compaq for $307 million, and Musk then founded an online financial services business, X.com, which later on became Pay, Pal, which concentrated on transferring cash online. The online auction e, Bay purchased Pay, Buddy in 2002 for $1. 5 billion. Musk was long persuaded that for life to endure, humanity needs to become a multiplanet species. However, he was disappointed with the excellent expense of rocket launchers. In 2002 he established Area Exploration Technologies (Space, X) to make more economical rockets.
A third rocket, the Falcon Heavy (first introduced in 2018), was designed 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. Area, 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 designed for supplying quick transport between cities on Earth and developing bases on the Moon and Mars.
Dragon can carry 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 totally recyclable rocket that might raise off and return to the pad it introduced 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 Space, X, Musk was also primary designer in developing the Falcon rockets, Dragon, and Grasshopper. Get a Britannica Premium membership and gain access to special content. Subscribe Now Musk had long been interested in the possibilities of electrical automobiles, and in 2004 he turned into one of the major funders of Tesla Motors (later relabelled Tesla), an electrical automobile business founded by entrepreneurs Martin Eberhard and Marc Tarpenning.