Elon Musk - Biography & Facts - Britannica

Video launched by spacecraft maker Go to this site Space, X celebrating Informative post its Dragon capsule, which on May 25, 2012, ended up being the very first commercial 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, Friend and formed Area, X, maker of launch automobiles and spacecraft. He was also one of the first significant investors in, as well as ceo of, the electric car maker Tesla. Leading Questions, Elon Musk was born upon June 28, 1971. Elon Musk cofounded the electronic payment company Pay, Buddy and established the spacecraft company Area, X.

Elon Musk founded Area, X, a company that makes rockets and spacecraft. He ended up being the president and a major funder of Tesla, that makes electrical vehicles. Musk was born to a South African dad and a Canadian mother. He displayed an early talent for computers and entrepreneurship. At age 12 he developed a video game and sold it to a computer magazine. In 1988, after getting a Canadian passport, Musk left South Africa because he hesitated to support apartheid through compulsory military service and because he sought the higher financial chances readily available 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 founded Zip2, a business that supplied maps and organization 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 company, X.com, which later on ended up being Pay, Pal, which specialized in moving money online. The online auction e, Bay bought Pay, Buddy in 2002 for $1. 5 billion. Musk was long persuaded that for life to survive, humanity has to become a multiplanet types. Nevertheless, he was dissatisfied with the great expenditure of rocket launchers. In 2002 he founded Area Exploration Technologies (Space, X) to make more cost effective rockets.

A third rocket, the Falcon Heavy (initially launched in 2018), was designed to bring 117,000 pounds (53,000 kg) to orbit, nearly two times as much as its biggest competitor, the Boeing Business's Delta IV Heavy, for one-third the cost. Space, X has revealed the follower to the Falcon 9 and the Falcon Heavy: the Click for more info Super Heavy, Starship system. The Super Heavy first phase would be capable of lifting 100,000 kg (220,000 pounds) to low Earth orbit. The payload would be the Starship, a spacecraft designed for providing quick transport between cities in the world and building bases on the Moon and Mars.

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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 sought to minimize the cost of spaceflight by developing a completely reusable rocket that could take off and return to the pad it launched from. Beginning in 2012, Area, X's Grasshopper rocket made several short flights to evaluate such Learn more here 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 subscription and gain access to special material. Subscribe Now Musk had long had an interest in the possibilities of electric automobiles, and in 2004 he turned into one of the major funders of Tesla Motors (later renamed Tesla), an electric cars and truck company founded by entrepreneurs Martin Eberhard and Marc Tarpenning.