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Jeff Bezos in front of the Blue Origin space capsule
Jeff Bezos, Sir Richard Branson and Elon Musk, who call it NewSpace, say they were inspired by the first moon landing in 1969, when the US beat the Soviet Union in the space race, and there’s no doubt how influential that was. It means that they all win the “new space race.”
Amazon founder Bezos looked set to be the first of the three to fly into space, after he announced plans to launch aboard his space company Blue Origin’s New Shepard spacecraft on July 20, but Branson beat him to it.
The British billionaire became Virgin Galactic 001 astronaut when he arrived in space on a suborbital flight nine days before Bezos – on July 11 in a test flight.
Bezos traveled into space on July 20 with his younger brother Mark, Oliver Damon, an 18-year-old physics student whose father bought his ticket, and pioneering astronaut Wally Funk, 82.
Although SpaceX and Tesla founder Musk has said he wants to go to space, and even “die on Mars,” he hasn’t said when he might explode into orbit — but he has bought a ticket with Virgin Galactic for a suborbital flight.
SpaceX has become the first “space tourism” operator to send an entirely civilian crew into orbit, with the Inspiration4 mission funded by billionaire Jared Isaacman.
His flight was aboard a Dragon capsule and a SpaceX rocket built by space-obsessed billionaire Elon Musk, and blasted off on a three-day orbital journey on September 16 — higher than the International Space Station.
SpaceX appears to be leading the way in the broader billionaire space race with several launches carrying NASA equipment to the International Space Station and partnerships to send tourists into space by 2021.
On February 6, 2018, SpaceX sent a rocket into Mars orbit, 140 million miles away, with Musk’s red Tesla Roadster attached to it.
Elon Musk with Dragon Crew capsule
SpaceX also took two groups of astronauts to the International Space Station, with crews from NASA, the European Space Agency and the Japanese space agency JAXA.
SpaceX has sent batches of 60 satellites into space to help form its Starlink network, which is already in beta and provides fast internet to rural areas.
Branson and Virgin Galactic take a different approach to conquering space. It has repeatedly and successfully conducted test flights of Virgin Galactic’s Unity spaceplane.
The first took place in December 2018 and the last on May 22, with the flight accelerating to more than 2,000 mph (Mach 2.7).
More than 600 wealthy clients so far, including celebrities Brad Pitt and Katy Perry, have booked a $250,000 (£200,000) seat on one of Virgin’s spaceflights. The final tickets are expected to cost $350,000.
Branson has previously said he expects Elon Musk to win the race to Mars with his private rocket company SpaceX.
Richard Branson with Virgin Galactic
SpaceShipTwo can carry six passengers and two pilots. Every passenger gets the same seating position with two large windows – one on the side and one at the top.
The spaceship is 60 feet long and has a cabin diameter of 90 inches, allowing maximum space for the astronauts to float in zero gravity.
It climbs to an altitude of 50,000 feet before the rocket engine ignites. SpaceShipTwo separates from its White Knight II carrier vehicle once it passes the 50-mile mark.
Passengers become “astronauts” when they reach the Kerman Line, the boundary of the Earth’s atmosphere.
The spaceship will then make a suborbital flight with approximately six minutes of weightlessness, with the entire flight taking about 1.5 hours.
Bezos revealed in April 2017 that he funds Blue Origin with around $1bn (£720m) in Amazon stock each year.
The system consists of a pressurized crew capsule atop a reusable New Shepard booster.
At its peak, the capsule reached an altitude of 65 miles (104 kilometers), just above the official threshold of space, and descended vertically seven minutes after liftoff.
Blue Origin is working on New Glenn, the next generation of heavy rockets, which will compete with the SpaceX Falcon 9.
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