Video launched by spacecraft maker Space, X commemorating its Dragon pill, which on May 25, 2012, became the very first industrial spacecraft to dock with the International Spaceport Station. Area, X (A Britannica Publishing Partner), (born June 28, 1971, Pretoria, South Africa), South African-born American business owner who cofounded the electronic-payment firm Pay, Friend and formed Space, X, maker of launch automobiles and spacecraft. He was also one of the first significant investors in, as well as president of, the electric car manufacturer Tesla. Top Questions, Elon Musk was born on June 28, 1971. Elon Musk cofounded the electronic payment firm Pay, Friend and founded the spacecraft business Space, X.

Elon Musk established Space, X, a business that makes rockets and spacecraft. He ended up being the chief executive officer and a major funder of Tesla, that makes electrical cars and trucks. 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 video game and sold it to a computer magazine. In 1988, after obtaining a Canadian passport, Musk left South Africa because he hesitated to support apartheid through obligatory military service and due to the fact that he sought the greater economic opportunities readily available 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 established Zip2, a company that offered maps and company directories to online papers. In 1999 Zip2 was bought by the computer system producer Compaq for $307 million, and Musk then founded an online monetary services company, X.com, which Discover more here later on ended up being Pay, Pal, which concentrated on transferring cash online. The online auction e, Bay purchased Pay, Pal in 2002 for $1. 5 billion. Musk was long convinced that for life to make it through, humanity needs to become a multiplanet species. Nevertheless, he was dissatisfied with the fantastic expenditure of rocket Click for source launchers. In 2002 he founded Area Expedition Technologies (Area, X) to make more economical rockets.

A third 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 cost. Space, X has actually announced the follower to the Falcon 9 and the Falcon Heavy: the Super Heavy, Starship system. The Super Heavy first stage would can raising 100,000 kg (220,000 pounds) to low Earth orbit. The payload would be the Starship, a spacecraft designed for providing fast transport between cities on Earth and building bases on the Moon and Mars.

Dragon can bring as many as 7 astronauts, and it had a crewed flight carrying astronauts Doug Hurley and Robert Behnken to the ISS in 2020. Musk looked for to minimize the expenditure of spaceflight by More helpful hints establishing a totally reusable rocket that could lift off and go back to the pad it released from. Beginning in 2012, Area, X's Insect rocket made several brief flights to test such technology. In addition to being CEO of Area, X, Musk Find more information was likewise primary designer in constructing the Falcon rockets, Dragon, and Grasshopper. Get a Britannica Premium membership and gain access to exclusive material. Subscribe Now Musk had long had an interest in the possibilities of electric vehicles, and in 2004 he became one of the major funders of Tesla Motors (later renamed Tesla), an electrical car business founded by entrepreneurs Martin Eberhard and Marc Tarpenning.