Liftoff By Eric Berger — Musk's Otherworldly Ambition ...

1. Video released by spacecraft maker Area, X celebrating its Dragon pill, which on May 25, 2012, became the very 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 entrepreneur who cofounded the electronic-payment firm Pay, Friend and formed Area, X, maker of launch lorries and spacecraft. He was likewise one of the first considerable investors in, along with president of, the electrical automobile producer Tesla. Leading Concerns, Elon Musk was born on June 28, 1971. Elon Musk cofounded the electronic payment company Pay, Buddy and established the spacecraft company Area, X. Elon Musk founded Space, X, a business that makes rockets and spacecraft. He ended up being the ceo and a significant funder of Tesla, which makes electrical cars and trucks. Musk was born to a South African father and a Canadian mother. He displayed an early skill for computer systems and entrepreneurship. At age 12 he created a computer game and offered it to a computer system publication. In 1988, after acquiring a Canadian passport, Musk left South Africa since he was reluctant to support apartheid through mandatory military service and due to the fact that he looked for the greater economic opportunities offered in the United States. Musk went to 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 service directory sites to online papers. In 1999 Zip2 was bought by the computer 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, Pal in 2002 for $1. 5 billion. Musk was long convinced that for life to endure, humanity has to become a multiplanet species. Nevertheless, he was dissatisfied with the excellent cost of rocket launchers. In 2002 he founded Area Expedition Technologies (Area, X) to make more inexpensive rockets. A third rocket, the Falcon Heavy (first launched in 2018), was developed to bring 117,000 pounds (53,000 kg) to orbit, almost twice as much as its largest rival, the Boeing Business's Delta IV Heavy, for one-third the expense. Space, X has revealed the successor 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 created for offering quick transport between cities in the world and building bases on the Moon and Mars. Dragon can bring as numerous as 7 astronauts, and it had a crewed flight bring 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 take off and return to the pad it launched from. Starting in 2012, Space, X's Grasshopper rocket made a number of brief flights to evaluate such innovation. 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 membership and gain access to unique material. Subscribe Now Musk had actually long had an interest in the possibilities of electrical cars and trucks, and in 2004 he became one of the major funders of Tesla Motors (later relabelled Tesla), an electrical automobile business founded by business owners Martin Eberhard and Marc Tarpenning.