Video released by spacecraft maker Area, X celebrating its Dragon capsule, which on May 25, 2012, became the very first business 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 business owner who cofounded the electronic-payment company Pay, Pal and formed Space, X, maker of launch automobiles and spacecraft. He was likewise among the first substantial investors in, in addition to primary executive officer of, the electrical automobile manufacturer Tesla. Top Questions, Elon Musk was born on June 28, 1971. Elon Musk cofounded the electronic payment company Pay, Buddy and established the spacecraft business Area, X.
Elon Musk founded Area, X, a business that makes rockets and spacecraft. He became the chief executive officer and a major funder of Tesla, which makes electric vehicles. Musk was born to a South African dad and a Canadian mom. He displayed an early talent for computers and entrepreneurship. At age 12 he created a computer game and sold it to a computer publication. In 1988, after acquiring a Canadian passport, Musk left South Africa due to the fact that he hesitated to support apartheid through obligatory military service and because he looked for the higher financial chances offered in the United States. Musk attended 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 founded Zip2, a business that supplied maps and service directories to online papers. In 1999 Zip2 was purchased by the computer manufacturer Compaq for $307 million, and Musk then established an online financial services company, X.com, which later on became Pay, Pal, which concentrated on transferring money online. The online auction e, Bay bought Pay, Pal in 2002 for $1. 5 billion. Musk was long convinced that for life to survive, humanity has to end up being a multiplanet species. However, he was disappointed with the terrific cost of rocket launchers. In 2002 he established Space Expedition Technologies (Area, X) to make more affordable rockets.
A third rocket, the Falcon Heavy (first launched in 2018), was designed to carry 117,000 pounds (53,000 kg) to orbit, almost twice as much as its biggest rival, the Boeing Company's Delta IV Heavy, for one-third the expense. Space, X has actually revealed the follower to the Falcon 9 and the Falcon Heavy: the Super Heavy, Starship system. The Super Heavy very first stage would can raising 100,000 kg (220,000 pounds) to low Earth orbit. The payload would be the Starship, a spacecraft created for supplying quick transportation 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 sought to decrease the expenditure of spaceflight by establishing a totally recyclable rocket that might lift off and tesla elon musk baby name return to the pad it launched from. Starting in 2012, Space, X's Grasshopper rocket made numerous brief flights to check such technology. In addition to being CEO of Space, X, Musk was also chief designer in developing the Falcon rockets, Dragon, and Insect. Get a Britannica Premium elon musk subscription and gain access to special content. Subscribe Now Musk had actually long been interested in the possibilities of electric cars and trucks, and in 2004 he turned into one of the significant funders of Tesla Motors (later on renamed Tesla), an electric automobile business established by entrepreneurs Martin Eberhard and Marc Tarpenning.