Video released by spacecraft maker Area, X celebrating its Dragon pill, which on May 25, 2012, became the first commercial 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 business owner who cofounded the electronic-payment company Pay, Buddy and formed Area, X, maker of launch lorries and spacecraft. He was also one of the very first substantial financiers in, along with president of, the electrical cars and truck maker Tesla. Top Questions, Elon Musk was born on June 28, 1971. Elon Musk cofounded the electronic payment company Pay, Pal and established the spacecraft company Space, X.

Elon Musk founded Area, X, a company that makes rockets and spacecraft. He became the primary executive officer and a major funder of Tesla, which makes electrical cars. Musk was born to a South African father and a Canadian mom. He showed an early skill for computer systems and entrepreneurship. At age 12 he produced a computer game and offered it to a computer system magazine. In 1988, after acquiring a Canadian passport, Musk left South Africa since he hesitated to support apartheid through compulsory military service and due to the fact that he sought the higher economic chances offered 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 received bachelor's degrees in physics and economics in 1997.

In 1995 he established Zip2, a company that supplied maps and organization directory sites to online newspapers. In 1999 Zip2 was purchased by the computer system maker Compaq for $307 million, and Musk then established an online monetary services company, X.com, which later ended up being Pay, Friend, which focused on moving money online. The online auction e, Bay purchased Pay, Friend in 2002 for $1. 5 billion. Musk was long persuaded that for life to endure, humanity needs to become a multiplanet species. However, he was dissatisfied Check out this site with the great expenditure of rocket launchers. In 2002 he established Space Exploration Technologies (Space, X) to make more budget friendly rockets.

A 3rd rocket, the Falcon Heavy (initially released in 2018), was designed to bring 117,000 pounds (53,000 kg) to orbit, nearly twice as much as its biggest competitor, the Boeing Company's Delta IV Heavy, for one-third the expense. Area, X has actually announced the follower to the Falcon 9 and the Falcon Heavy: the Super Heavy, Starship system. The Super Heavy very first stage 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 developing bases on the Moon and Mars.

Dragon can carry as many as 7 astronauts, and it had a crewed flight bring astronauts Doug Hurley and Robert Behnken to the ISS in 2020. Musk sought to reduce the cost of spaceflight by establishing a totally recyclable rocket that could lift off and go back to the pad it introduced from. Beginning in 2012, Space, X's Insect rocket made a number of short flights to evaluate such technology. In addition to being CEO of Space, X, Musk was also chief designer in building the Falcon rockets, Dragon, and Insect. Get a Britannica Premium membership and gain access to exclusive material. Subscribe Now Musk had actually long been interested in the possibilities of electric cars, and in 2004 he turned into one of the significant funders of Tesla Motors (later relabelled Tesla), an electrical car company founded by entrepreneurs Martin Eberhard and Marc Tarpenning.