Video released by spacecraft maker Space, X commemorating its Dragon capsule, which on May 25, 2012, ended up being the 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 firm Pay, Pal and formed Space, X, maker of launch vehicles and spacecraft. He was also among the first considerable financiers in, in addition to primary executive officer of, the electric vehicle producer Tesla. Top Questions, Elon Musk was born upon June 28, 1971. Elon Musk cofounded the electronic payment firm Pay, Friend and established the spacecraft business Space, X.
Elon Musk established Area, X, a company that makes rockets and spacecraft. He became the primary executive officer and a major funder of Tesla, that makes electric cars. Musk was born to a South African dad and a Canadian mom. He showed an early skill for computers and entrepreneurship. At age 12 he developed a computer game and offered it to a computer system publication. 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 looked for the higher financial opportunities offered in the United States. Musk went to Queen's University in Kingston, Ontario, and in 1992 he moved to the University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, where he received bachelor's degrees in physics and economics in 1997.
In 1995 he founded Zip2, a company that supplied maps and company directory sites to online newspapers. In 1999 Zip2 was bought by the computer system maker Compaq for $307 million, and Musk then founded an online monetary services business, X.com, which later on ended up being Pay, Pal, which specialized in moving cash online. The online auction e, Bay bought Pay, Friend in 2002 for $1. 5 billion. Musk was long persuaded that for life to make it through, humankind needs to end up being a multiplanet types. However, he was dissatisfied with the terrific expenditure of rocket launchers. In 2002 he established Space Exploration Technologies (Area, X) to make more inexpensive rockets.
A 3rd rocket, the Falcon Heavy (initially introduced in 2018), was designed to carry 117,000 pounds (53,000 kg) to orbit, almost two times as much as its largest competitor, the Boeing Business's Delta IV Heavy, for one-third the expense. Space, X has revealed the follower to the Falcon 9 and the Falcon Heavy: the Super Heavy, Starship system. The Super Heavy very first phase would be capable of raising 100,000 kg (220,000 pounds) to low Earth orbit. The payload would be the Starship, a spacecraft developed for supplying quick transport in between cities in the world and constructing bases on the Moon and Mars.
Dragon can bring 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 developing a fully reusable rocket that might take off and return to the pad it introduced from. Beginning in 2012, Area, X's Grasshopper rocket made numerous short flights to test such innovation. In addition to being CEO of Space, 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 had an interest in the possibilities of electric automobiles, and in 2004 he turned into one of the significant funders of Tesla Motors (later relabelled Tesla), an electrical automobile business established by entrepreneurs Martin Eberhard and Marc Tarpenning.