Video launched by spacecraft maker Space, X commemorating its Dragon pill, which on May 25, 2012, became the 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 entrepreneur who cofounded the electronic-payment firm Pay, Friend and formed Area, X, maker of launch cars and spacecraft. He was likewise one of the first considerable investors in, as well as president of, the electrical vehicle producer Tesla. Top Questions, Elon Musk was born on June 28, 1971. Elon Musk cofounded the electronic payment firm Pay, Pal and founded the spacecraft business Area, X.
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Elon Musk founded Space, X, a company that makes rockets and spacecraft. He became the president and a major funder of Tesla, which makes electric cars and trucks. Musk was born to a South African daddy and a Canadian mother. He showed an early skill for computer systems and entrepreneurship. At age 12 he produced a video game and offered it to a computer publication. In 1988, after obtaining a Canadian passport, Musk left South Africa due to the fact that he was reluctant to support apartheid through mandatory military service and due to the fact that he looked for the higher 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 business directories to online papers. In 1999 Zip2 was bought by the computer system maker Compaq for $307 million, and Musk then established an online monetary services business, X.com, which later on ended up being Pay, Buddy, which concentrated on transferring money 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 species. However, he was disappointed with the excellent expense of rocket launchers. In 2002 he established Space Expedition Technologies (Area, X) to make more budget friendly rockets.
A third rocket, the Falcon Heavy (first launched in 2018), was created to bring 117,000 pounds (53,000 kg) to orbit, almost twice as much as its largest rival, the Boeing Business's Delta IV Heavy, for one-third the cost. Space, X has announced the successor to the Falcon 9 and the Falcon Heavy: the Super Heavy, Starship system. The Super Heavy 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 offering quick transportation between cities in the world and developing 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 sought to reduce the expenditure of spaceflight by establishing a fully multiple-use rocket that could take off and return to the pad it launched from. Beginning in 2012, Area, X's Grasshopper rocket made a number of brief flights to check such technology. In addition to being CEO of Space, X, Musk was also chief designer in building the Falcon rockets, Dragon, and Grasshopper. Get a Britannica Premium subscription and gain access to special content. Subscribe Now Musk had actually long had an interest in the possibilities of electrical cars, and in 2004 he became one of the major funders of Tesla Motors (later on relabelled Tesla), an electric vehicle company established by business owners Martin Eberhard and Marc Tarpenning.