Video launched by spacecraft maker Area, X commemorating its Dragon pill, which on May 25, 2012, became the first business spacecraft to dock with the International check here Spaceport Station. Space, X View website (A Britannica Publishing Partner), (born June 28, 1971, Pretoria, South Africa), South African-born American entrepreneur who cofounded the electronic-payment firm Pay, Buddy and formed Space, X, maker of launch automobiles and spacecraft. He was also among the very first substantial financiers in, as well as president of, the electric cars and truck manufacturer Tesla. Leading Concerns, Elon Musk was born upon June 28, 1971. Elon Musk cofounded the electronic payment company Pay, Friend and established the spacecraft company Space, X.
Elon Musk established Area, X, a business that makes rockets and spacecraft. He became the president and a major funder of Tesla, that makes electrical vehicles. Musk was born to a South African dad and a Canadian mom. He showed an early talent for computers and entrepreneurship. At age 12 he developed more info a computer game and sold it to a computer system publication. In 1988, after getting a Canadian passport, Musk left South Africa since he was unwilling to support apartheid through obligatory military service and because he sought the higher financial opportunities available in the United States. Musk attended Queen's University in Kingston, Ontario, and in 1992 he moved to the University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, where he got bachelor's degrees in physics and economics in 1997.
In 1995 he established Zip2, a company that supplied maps and company directory sites to online papers. In 1999 Zip2 was bought by the computer system maker Compaq for $307 million, and Musk then founded an online financial Click here to find out more services company, X.com, which later on ended up being Pay, Friend, which concentrated on moving money online. The online auction e, Bay bought Pay, Friend in 2002 for $1. 5 billion. Musk was long convinced that for life to make it through, humankind has to end up being a multiplanet types. However, he was dissatisfied with the great cost of rocket launchers. In 2002 he founded Space Expedition Technologies (Space, Home page X) to make more inexpensive rockets.
A 3rd rocket, the Falcon Heavy (first introduced in 2018), was created to bring 117,000 pounds (53,000 kg) to orbit, nearly twice as much as its biggest rival, the Boeing Company's Delta IV Heavy, for one-third the expense. 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 be capable of raising 100,000 kg (220,000 pounds) to low Earth orbit. The payload would be the Starship, a spacecraft designed for offering quick transport in between cities on Earth and developing bases on the Moon and Mars.
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Dragon can carry as numerous as seven astronauts, and it had a crewed flight carrying astronauts Doug Hurley and Robert Behnken to the ISS in 2020. Musk looked for to reduce the cost of spaceflight by establishing a totally multiple-use rocket that could raise off and go back to the pad it launched from. Starting in 2012, Area, X's Insect rocket made several short flights to check such technology. In addition to being CEO of Area, X, Musk was also chief designer in constructing the Falcon rockets, Dragon, and Grasshopper. Get a Britannica Premium membership and gain access to unique content. Subscribe Now Musk had long had an interest in the possibilities of electrical vehicles, and in 2004 he turned into one of the significant funders of Tesla Motors (later renamed Tesla), an electrical cars and truck company founded by business owners Martin Eberhard and Marc Tarpenning.