Video launched by spacecraft maker Area, X commemorating its Dragon pill, which on May 25, 2012, ended up being the very first business 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 firm Pay, Pal and formed Space, X, maker of launch lorries and spacecraft. He was Informative post likewise among the first substantial financiers in, along with president of, the electric automobile manufacturer Tesla. Leading Questions, Elon Musk was born on June 28, 1971. Elon Musk cofounded the electronic payment firm Pay, Pal and established the spacecraft business Space, X.

Elon Musk established Space, X, a company that makes rockets and spacecraft. He became the primary executive officer and a significant funder of Tesla, which makes electrical cars. 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 produced a computer game and sold it to a computer system publication. In 1988, after getting a Canadian passport, Musk left South Africa because he was unwilling to support apartheid through compulsory military service and because he looked for the greater economic opportunities offered in the United States. Musk participated in Queen's University in Kingston, Ontario, and in 1992 he transferred 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 supplied maps and service directories to online papers. In 1999 Zip2 was purchased by the computer system maker Compaq for $307 million, and Musk then established an online monetary services company, X.com, which later became Pay, Pal, which concentrated on transferring cash online. The online auction e, Bay bought Pay, Pal in 2002 for $1. 5 billion. Musk was long convinced that for life to endure, humanity needs to end up being a multiplanet species. However, he was dissatisfied with the terrific expense of rocket launchers. In 2002 he founded Area Exploration Technologies (Area, X) to make more budget friendly rockets.

A third rocket, the Falcon Heavy (initially launched in 2018), was created to bring 117,000 pounds (53,000 kg) to orbit, almost twice as much as its largest competitor, the Boeing Business's Delta IV Heavy, for one-third the cost. Area, X has announced the View website follower to the Falcon 9 and the Falcon Heavy: the Super Heavy, Starship system. The Super Heavy very first phase would can lifting 100,000 kg (220,000 pounds) to low Earth orbit. The payload would be the Starship, a spacecraft developed for supplying fast transport in between cities on Earth and developing bases on the Moon and Mars.

Dragon can carry as many as 7 astronauts, and it had a crewed flight carrying astronauts Doug Hurley and Robert Behnken to the ISS in 2020. Musk looked for to lower the cost of spaceflight by establishing a totally reusable rocket that could lift off and return to the pad it launched from. Starting in 2012, Area, X's Grasshopper rocket made numerous brief flights to check such technology. In addition to being CEO of Area, X, Musk was also primary designer in building the Falcon rockets, Dragon, and Grasshopper. Get a Britannica Premium subscription and gain access to exclusive material. Subscribe Now Musk had actually long had an interest in the possibilities of electrical cars, and in 2004 he became one of the significant funders of Tesla Motors (later on relabelled Tesla), an electric vehicle business founded by business owners Martin Eberhard and elon musk spouse Marc Tarpenning.