Pandemic Or Not, Elon Musk Is Revolutionizing Two Industries ...

1. Video released by spacecraft maker Area, X celebrating its Dragon capsule, which on May 25, 2012, ended up being the first industrial 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 business owner who cofounded the electronic-payment company Pay, Friend and formed Area, X, maker of launch lorries and spacecraft. He was also among the very first significant financiers in, in addition to primary executive officer of, the electrical car manufacturer Tesla. Leading Concerns, Elon Musk was born upon June 28, 1971. Elon Musk cofounded the electronic payment firm Pay, Friend and founded the spacecraft business Space, X. Elon Musk founded Area, X, a business that makes rockets and spacecraft. He became the president and a major funder of Tesla, that makes electric cars and trucks. Musk was born to a South African father and a Canadian mom. He showed an early skill for computers and entrepreneurship. At age 12 he produced a computer 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 compulsory military service and since he looked for the greater Additional info 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 received bachelor's degrees in physics and economics in 1997. In 1995 he founded Zip2, a business that offered maps and service directories to online newspapers. In 1999 Zip2 was purchased by the computer system producer Compaq for $307 million, and Musk then founded an online monetary services company, X.com, which later on ended up being Pay, Friend, which focused on moving money online. The online auction e, Bay bought Pay, Buddy in 2002 for $1. 5 billion. Musk was long persuaded that for life to survive, humankind has to become a multiplanet types. However, he was disappointed with the great expense of rocket launchers. In 2002 he founded Area Expedition Technologies (Space, X) to make more cost effective rockets. A third rocket, the Falcon Heavy (initially launched in 2018), was designed to bring 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 successor 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 transportation between cities on Earth and building 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 sought to decrease the expense of spaceflight by developing a completely multiple-use rocket that could lift off and go back to the pad it released from. Beginning in 2012, Area, X's Insect rocket made a number of diigo.com/0mxqu3 brief flights to evaluate such technology. In addition to being CEO of Space, X, Musk was also primary designer in constructing the Falcon rockets, Dragon, and Grasshopper. Get a Britannica Premium membership and gain access to unique content. Subscribe Now Musk had actually long had an interest in the possibilities of electrical vehicles, and in 2004 he became one of the significant funders of Tesla Motors (later on relabelled Tesla), an electric cars and truck company established by entrepreneurs Martin Eberhard and Marc Tarpenning.