Video released by spacecraft maker Space, X celebrating its Dragon capsule, which on May 25, 2012, ended up being the first business spacecraft to dock with the International Spaceport 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 company Pay, Friend and formed Space, X, maker of launch cars and spacecraft. He was also one of the first considerable financiers in, as well as chief executive officer of, the electric vehicle manufacturer Tesla. Top Concerns, Elon Musk was born on June 28, 1971. Elon Musk cofounded the electronic payment firm Pay, Friend and established the spacecraft business Space, X.

Elon Musk established Space, X, a company that makes rockets and spacecraft. He ended up being the ceo and a significant funder of Tesla, which makes electrical automobiles. Musk was born to a South African dad and a Canadian mom. He displayed an early talent for computer systems and entrepreneurship. At age 12 he developed a computer game and offered it to a computer system publication. In 1988, after getting a Canadian passport, Musk left South Africa due to the fact that he hesitated to support apartheid through required military service and since he sought the greater financial opportunities offered in the United Discover more here 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 supplied maps and service directory sites to online papers. In 1999 Zip2 was bought 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 money online. The online auction e, Bay purchased Pay, Buddy in 2002 for $1. 5 billion. Musk was long convinced that for life to endure, humanity needs to end up being a multiplanet types. However, he was dissatisfied with the fantastic cost of rocket launchers. In 2002 he founded Area Expedition Technologies (Space, X) to make more budget friendly rockets.

A 3rd rocket, the Falcon Heavy (initially launched in 2018), was created to bring 117,000 pounds (53,000 kg) to orbit, almost two times as much as its largest competitor, the Boeing Company's Delta IV Heavy, for one-third the cost. Space, X has announced the successor 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 designed for offering quick transportation in between cities in the world and constructing 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 establishing a completely multiple-use rocket that could take off and go back to the pad it introduced from. Starting in 2012, Area, X's Grasshopper rocket made a number of short flights to check such technology. In addition to being CEO of Space, X, Musk was likewise primary designer in constructing the Falcon rockets, Dragon, and Grasshopper. Get a Britannica Premium subscription and gain access to special material. Subscribe Now Musk had 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 renamed Tesla), an electric automobile company established by entrepreneurs Martin Eberhard and Marc Tarpenning.