Video launched by spacecraft maker Area, X commemorating its Dragon pill, which on May 25, 2012, ended up being the first commercial spacecraft to dock with the International Area 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, Pal and formed Space, X, maker of launch lorries and spacecraft. He was also among the first considerable financiers in, as well as president of, the electrical car manufacturer Tesla. Leading Questions, Elon Musk was born on June 28, 1971. Elon Musk cofounded the electronic payment company Pay, Friend and founded the spacecraft business Space, X.
Elon Musk established Space, X, a company that makes rockets and spacecraft. He became the chief executive officer and a significant funder of Tesla, which makes electrical cars. Musk was born to a South African father and a Canadian mother. He showed an early skill for computer systems and entrepreneurship. At age 12 he created a computer game and sold it to a computer system publication. In 1988, after obtaining a Canadian passport, Musk left South Africa since he hesitated to support apartheid through required military service and since he sought the higher financial 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 business that provided maps and organization directories to online newspapers. In 1999 Zip2 was purchased by the computer maker Compaq for $307 million, and Musk then established an online monetary services business, X.com, which later became Pay, Friend, 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 endure, mankind has to become a multiplanet types. Nevertheless, he was disappointed with the fantastic expense of rocket launchers. In 2002 he founded Area Expedition Technologies (Area, X) to make more budget-friendly rockets.
A third rocket, the Falcon Heavy (first released in 2018), was developed to bring 117,000 pounds (53,000 kg) to orbit, almost twice as much as its biggest rival, the Boeing Company's Delta IV Heavy, for one-third the cost. Space, X has revealed 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 providing quick transportation in between cities on Earth and building bases on the Moon and Mars.
Dragon can bring as lots of as seven astronauts, and it had a crewed flight bring astronauts Doug Hurley and Robert Behnken to the ISS in 2020. Musk looked for to reduce the expenditure of spaceflight by establishing a totally multiple-use rocket that could take off and return to the pad it released from. Starting in 2012, Area, X's Insect rocket made several brief flights to evaluate such technology. In addition to being CEO of Area, X, Musk was also primary designer in constructing the Falcon rockets, Dragon, and Insect. Get a Britannica Premium subscription and gain access to special content. Subscribe Now Musk had long been interested in the possibilities of electric vehicles, and in 2004 he ended up being one of the significant funders of Tesla Motors (later relabelled Tesla), an electrical vehicle business founded by business owners Martin Eberhard and Marc Tarpenning.