Video launched by spacecraft maker Area, X celebrating its Dragon pill, which on May 25, 2012, ended up being the first industrial 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 company Pay, Buddy and formed Space, X, maker of launch automobiles and spacecraft. He was also among the first significant investors in, as well as ceo of, the electric vehicle maker Tesla. Leading Concerns, Elon Musk was born on June 28, 1971. Elon Musk cofounded the electronic payment company Pay, Buddy and established the spacecraft business Area, X.
Elon Musk founded Area, X, a business that makes rockets and spacecraft. He ended up being the chief executive officer and a significant funder of Tesla, which makes electrical cars and trucks. Musk was born to a South African dad and a Canadian mother. He displayed an early skill for computers and entrepreneurship. At age 12 he produced a video game and sold it to a computer magazine. In 1988, after acquiring a Canadian passport, Musk left South Africa due to the fact that he hesitated to support apartheid through obligatory military service and because he looked for the higher economic opportunities 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 got bachelor's degrees in physics and economics in 1997.
In 1995 he founded Zip2, a business that offered maps and organization directories to online papers. In 1999 Zip2 was purchased by the computer system producer Compaq for $307 million, and Musk then established an online monetary services business, X.com, which later ended up being Pay, Friend, which concentrated on moving cash online. The online auction e, Bay purchased Pay, Buddy in 2002 for $1. 5 billion. Musk was long convinced that for life to survive, humankind needs to become a multiplanet species. However, he was disappointed with the excellent expense of rocket launchers. In 2002 he established Area Expedition Technologies (Space, X) to make more budget-friendly rockets.
A third rocket, the Falcon Heavy (first introduced in 2018), was designed to carry 117,000 pounds (53,000 kg) to orbit, almost twice as much as its largest competitor, the Boeing Company's Delta IV Heavy, for one-third the expense. Area, X has 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 lifting 100,000 kg (220,000 pounds) to low Earth orbit. The payload would be the Starship, a spacecraft created for supplying fast transport in between cities in the world and developing bases on the Moon and Mars.
Dragon can bring as many as seven astronauts, and it had a crewed flight carrying astronauts Doug Hurley and Robert Behnken to the ISS in 2020. Musk sought to reduce the expense of spaceflight by developing a completely multiple-use rocket that could raise off and go back to the pad it released from. Beginning in 2012, Space, X's Insect rocket made several brief flights to test such innovation. 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 membership and gain access to unique material. Subscribe Now Musk had long had an interest in the possibilities of electric automobiles, and in 2004 he ended up being one of the significant funders of Tesla Motors (later relabelled Tesla), an electrical automobile company established by business owners Martin Eberhard and Marc Tarpenning.