Video launched by spacecraft maker Area, X commemorating its Dragon pill, which on May 25, 2012, ended up being the very first commercial 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 company Pay, Buddy and formed Space, X, maker of launch Check out here lorries and spacecraft. He was also one of the first substantial financiers in, in addition to ceo of, the electrical car producer Tesla. Leading Questions, Elon Musk was born upon June 28, 1971. Elon Musk cofounded the electronic payment firm Pay, Friend and founded the spacecraft company Area, X.

Elon Musk established Area, X, a business that makes rockets Hop over to this website and spacecraft. He ended up being the president and a major funder of Tesla, that makes electric automobiles. Musk was born to a South African father and a Canadian mother. He displayed an early talent 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 because he was unwilling to support apartheid through mandatory 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 got bachelor's degrees in physics and economics in 1997.

In 1995 he established Zip2, a company that offered maps and service directory sites to online newspapers. In 1999 Zip2 was purchased by the computer system manufacturer Compaq for $307 million, and Musk then established an online monetary services business, X.com, which later became Pay, Friend, which focused on moving money online. The online auction e, Bay purchased Pay, Friend in 2002 for . 5 billion. Musk was long convinced that for life to make it through, humankind needs to become a multiplanet types. Nevertheless, he was dissatisfied with the great expenditure of rocket launchers. In 2002 he established Area Expedition Technologies (Area, X) to make more economical rockets.

A third rocket, the Falcon Heavy (initially released in 2018), was developed to carry 117,000 pounds (53,000 kg) to orbit, almost two times as much as its biggest competitor, the Boeing Business's Delta IV Heavy, for one-third the expense. Space, X has actually revealed the follower to the Falcon 9 and the Falcon Heavy: the Super Heavy, Starship system. The Super Heavy very first stage would can raising 100,000 kg (220,000 pounds) to low Earth orbit. The payload would be the Starship, a spacecraft developed for offering fast transport between cities in the world and developing bases on the Moon and Mars.

Dragon can bring 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 expenditure of spaceflight by developing a totally recyclable rocket that might take off and return to the pad it introduced from. Starting in 2012, Area, X's Grasshopper rocket made numerous brief flights to check such innovation. In addition to being CEO of Area, X, Musk was also chief designer in building the Falcon rockets, Dragon, and Grasshopper. Get a Britannica Premium subscription and gain access to unique material. Subscribe Now Musk had long had an interest in the possibilities of electric automobiles, and in 2004 he became one of the major funders of Tesla Motors (later relabelled Tesla), an electric car business founded by entrepreneurs Martin Eberhard and Marc Tarpenning.