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

1. 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 Space Station. Area, X (A Britannica Publishing Partner), (born June 28, 1971, Pretoria, South Africa), South African-born American entrepreneur who cofounded the electronic-payment company Pay, Pal and formed Space, X, maker of launch automobiles and spacecraft. He was likewise one of the very first substantial financiers in, as well as ceo of, the electrical car maker Tesla. Leading Concerns, Elon Musk was born upon June 28, 1971. Elon Musk cofounded the electronic payment company Pay, Friend and founded the spacecraft business Space, X. Elon Musk founded Space, X, a company that makes rockets and spacecraft. He became the chief executive officer and a major funder of Tesla, that makes electrical automobiles. 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 produced a computer game and offered it to a computer magazine. In 1988, after obtaining a Canadian passport, Musk left South Africa since he hesitated to support apartheid through obligatory military service and because he sought the higher financial opportunities available in the United States. Musk attended 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 company that offered maps and organization directory sites to online papers. In 1999 Zip2 was bought by the computer maker Compaq for $307 million, and Musk then founded an online monetary services business, X.com, which later became Pay, Friend, which specialized in transferring cash online. The online auction e, Bay purchased Pay, Buddy in 2002 for $1. 5 billion. Musk was long persuaded that for life to endure, humankind needs to become a multiplanet species. Nevertheless, he was disappointed with the great expense of rocket launchers. In 2002 he founded Area Exploration Technologies (Area, X) to make more inexpensive rockets. A 3rd rocket, the Falcon Heavy (first released in 2018), was designed to carry 117,000 pounds (53,000 kg) to orbit, almost two times as much as its largest rival, the Boeing Business's Delta IV Heavy, for one-third the expense. Area, X has revealed the successor to the Falcon 9 and the Falcon Heavy: the Super Heavy, Starship system. The Super Heavy 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 created for supplying quick transport between cities in the world and constructing 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 decrease the expenditure of spaceflight by establishing a totally reusable rocket that could take off and go back to the pad it launched from. Beginning in 2012, Area, X's Insect rocket made a number of short flights to evaluate such innovation. In addition to being CEO of Area, X, Musk was also chief designer in constructing the Falcon rockets, Dragon, and Grasshopper. Get a Britannica Premium membership and gain access to special content. Subscribe Now Musk had actually long had an interest in the possibilities of electric automobiles, and in 2004 he became one of the significant funders of Tesla Motors (later renamed Tesla), an electrical cars and truck company established by entrepreneurs Martin Eberhard and Marc Tarpenning.