Video released 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. Space, 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 likewise one of the elon musk spouse very first significant investors in, along with president of, the electrical automobile manufacturer 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.
Elon Musk founded Area, X, a company that makes rockets and spacecraft. He became the ceo and a significant funder of Tesla, that makes electric cars and trucks. Musk was born to a South African father and who is elon musk a Canadian mother. He displayed an early talent for computer systems and entrepreneurship. At age 12 he developed a video game and sold it to a computer publication. In 1988, after acquiring a Canadian passport, Musk left South Africa due to the fact that he hesitated to support apartheid through compulsory military service and since he sought the greater economic chances readily available in the United States. Musk attended Queen's University in Kingston, Ontario, and in 1992 he transferred to the University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, where he received bachelor's degrees in physics and economics in 1997.
In 1995 he founded Zip2, a business that supplied maps and organization directory sites to online papers. In 1999 Zip2 was bought by the computer manufacturer Compaq for $307 million, and Musk then founded an online financial services company, X.com, which later on ended up being Pay, Friend, which focused on transferring cash online. The online auction e, Bay purchased Pay, Friend in elon musk wife 2002 for $1. 5 billion. Musk was long convinced that for life to make it through, humanity needs to become a multiplanet species. However, he was disappointed with the fantastic cost of rocket launchers. In 2002 he established Space Expedition Technologies (Area, X) to make more affordable rockets.
A 3rd 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 biggest 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 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 designed for offering quick transportation in between cities on Earth and developing bases on the Moon and Mars.
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Dragon can carry as lots of as seven astronauts, and it had a crewed flight carrying astronauts Doug Hurley and Robert Behnken to the ISS in 2020. Musk sought to decrease the expenditure of spaceflight by establishing a totally recyclable rocket that could lift off and return to the pad it launched from. Starting in 2012, Area, X's Grasshopper rocket made several short flights to check such technology. In addition to being CEO of Area, X, Musk was also primary designer in developing the Falcon rockets, Dragon, and Grasshopper. Get a Britannica Premium membership and gain access to special content. Subscribe Now Musk had actually long been interested in the possibilities of electrical vehicles, and in 2004 he became one of the major funders of Tesla Motors (later on renamed Tesla), an electric vehicle company established by entrepreneurs Martin Eberhard and Marc Tarpenning.