Video launched by spacecraft maker Space, X celebrating its Dragon capsule, 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 entrepreneur who cofounded the electronic-payment firm Pay, Buddy and formed Area, X, maker of launch lorries and spacecraft. He was likewise among the first significant financiers in, in addition to ceo of, the electrical automobile maker Tesla. Click to find out more Leading Questions, Elon Musk was born on June 28, 1971. Elon Musk cofounded the electronic payment company Pay, Friend and established the spacecraft company Space, X.
Elon Musk founded Space, X, a business that makes rockets and spacecraft. He ended up being the ceo and a major funder of Tesla, which makes electric vehicles. Musk was born to a South African daddy and a Canadian mom. He showed an early talent for computer systems and entrepreneurship. At age 12 he created a video game and offered it to a computer system magazine. In 1988, after acquiring a Canadian passport, Musk left South Africa because he was unwilling to support apartheid through obligatory military service and because he sought the higher financial opportunities 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 received bachelor's degrees in physics and economics in 1997.
In 1995 he established Zip2, a business that supplied maps and organization directories to online papers. In 1999 Zip2 was bought by the computer producer Compaq for $307 million, and Musk then founded an online monetary services business, X.com, which later became Pay, Buddy, which concentrated on moving cash online. The online auction e, Bay purchased Pay, Pal in 2002 for $1. 5 billion. Musk was long persuaded that for life to endure, humanity has to become a multiplanet species. However, he was disappointed with the fantastic expenditure of rocket launchers. In 2002 he founded Space Expedition Technologies (Space, X) to make more budget-friendly rockets.
A third rocket, the Falcon Heavy (first launched in 2018), was developed to carry 117,000 pounds (53,000 kg) to orbit, almost twice as much as its biggest rival, the Boeing Business's Delta IV Heavy, for one-third the expense. Space, X has actually announced the successor 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 designed for supplying fast transportation in between cities in the world and developing bases on the Moon and Mars.
Dragon can carry as lots of 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 lower the expenditure of spaceflight by establishing a fully multiple-use rocket that could take off and return to the pad it introduced from. Beginning in 2012, Space, X's Insect rocket made a number of short flights to test such innovation. In addition to being CEO of Space, X, Musk was also primary designer in building the Falcon rockets, Dragon, and Insect. Get a Britannica Premium subscription and gain access to unique material. Subscribe Now Musk had actually long had an interest in the possibilities of electrical automobiles, and in 2004 he turned into one of the significant funders of Tesla Motors (later relabelled Tesla), an electrical car company established by entrepreneurs Martin Eberhard and Marc Tarpenning.