Video launched by spacecraft maker Space, X commemorating 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 entrepreneur who cofounded the electronic-payment firm Pay, Pal and formed Area, X, maker of launch automobiles and spacecraft. He was also among the very first substantial financiers in, in addition to president of, the electrical cars and truck producer Tesla. Top Questions, Elon Musk was born upon June 28, 1971. Elon Musk cofounded the electronic payment firm Pay, Buddy and founded the spacecraft company Area, X.

Elon Musk founded Area, X, a company that makes rockets and spacecraft. He became the chief executive officer and a major funder of Tesla, which makes electrical vehicles. Musk was born to a South African father and a Canadian mother. He displayed an early skill for computers and entrepreneurship. At age 12 he created a computer game and sold it to a computer magazine. In 1988, after acquiring a Canadian passport, Musk left South Africa because he hesitated to support apartheid through required military service and because he sought the greater economic chances available 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 received bachelor's degrees in physics and economics in 1997.

In 1995 he founded Zip2, a business that provided maps and service directories to online papers. In 1999 Zip2 was bought by the computer system jaspertcej118.bravesites.com/entries/general/who-is-elon-musk-and-what-made-him-big----business---- producer Compaq for $307 million, and Musk then founded an online monetary services business, X.com, which later ended up being Pay, Pal, which specialized in moving money online. The online auction e, Bay bought Pay, Friend in 2002 for $1. 5 billion. Musk was long convinced that for life to survive, humanity needs to end up being a multiplanet species. However, he was dissatisfied with the fantastic expenditure of rocket launchers. In 2002 he founded Space Exploration Technologies (Area, X) to make more economical rockets.

A third rocket, the Falcon Heavy (first launched in 2018), was designed to bring 117,000 pounds (53,000 kg) to orbit, nearly two times as much as its biggest competitor, the Boeing Company's Delta IV Heavy, for one-third the expense. Area, X has revealed the follower to the Falcon 9 and the Falcon Heavy: the Super Heavy, Starship system. The Super Heavy first phase would can lifting 100,000 kg (220,000 pounds) to low Earth orbit. The payload would be the Starship, a spacecraft designed for providing quick transportation in between cities on Earth and building bases on the Moon and Mars.

Dragon can carry as lots of 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 developing a totally reusable rocket that might take off and go back to the pad it released from. Starting in 2012, Area, X's Grasshopper rocket made numerous short flights to test such technology. In addition to being CEO of Space, X, Musk was likewise chief designer in developing the Falcon rockets, Dragon, and Insect. Get a Britannica Premium membership and gain access to special material. Subscribe Now Musk had actually long been interested in the possibilities of electrical vehicles, and in 2004 he turned into one of the major funders of Tesla Motors (later on relabelled Tesla), an electric car business founded by business owners Martin Eberhard and Marc Tarpenning.