Video launched by spacecraft maker Space, X celebrating its Dragon capsule, 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, Pal and formed Space, X, maker of launch automobiles and spacecraft. He was also among the first significant financiers in, as well as chief executive officer of, the electrical vehicle maker Tesla. Leading Concerns, Elon Musk was born upon June 28, 1971. Elon Musk cofounded the electronic payment company Pay, Pal and founded the spacecraft business Space, 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 electric automobiles. Musk was born to a South African dad and a Canadian mom. He displayed an early skill for computers and entrepreneurship. At age 12 he created a computer game and sold it to a computer publication. In 1988, after getting a Canadian passport, Musk left South Africa because he hesitated to support apartheid through required military service and because he sought the higher financial opportunities offered 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 got bachelor's degrees in physics and economics in 1997.
In 1995 he established Zip2, a company that provided maps and organization 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 ended up being Pay, Buddy, which concentrated on moving money online. The online auction e, Bay purchased Pay, Pal in 2002 for $1. 5 billion. Musk was long convinced that for life to make it through, humanity has to become a multiplanet species. However, he was disappointed with the terrific expense of rocket launchers. In 2002 he founded Space Expedition Technologies (Space, X) to make more affordable rockets.
A third rocket, the Falcon Heavy (first launched in 2018), was designed to bring 117,000 pounds (53,000 kg) to orbit, nearly twice as much as its biggest rival, the Boeing Company's Delta IV Heavy, for one-third the cost. Space, X has actually announced the successor 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 transport in between cities in the world and developing bases on the Moon and Mars.
Dragon can carry as numerous 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 lower the expense of spaceflight by establishing a completely recyclable rocket that might raise off and go back to the pad it introduced from. Beginning in 2012, Space, X's Grasshopper rocket made several brief flights to test such technology. In addition to being CEO of Area, X, Musk was also primary designer in constructing the Falcon rockets, Dragon, and Grasshopper. Get a Britannica Premium subscription and gain access to special content. Subscribe Now Musk had long been interested in the possibilities of electric cars and trucks, and in 2004 he turned into one of the major funders of Tesla Motors (later renamed Tesla), an electric vehicle company established by entrepreneurs Martin Eberhard and Marc Tarpenning.