DEVELOPING NEWS:
The news space race is here but this time is not just between the state actors as we know them. The billionaires space cowboys are fast heading there and they plan to get there on their own company built space ships.
Jeff Bezos was the first to announce his plans to join his aerospace company space crew on the Blue Origin. Bezos made the announcement on Monday that he will be joining the crew to the space on the 20th of July.
However, Richard Branson have said – not so fast. He now plans to make this trip 9 days earlier than Bezos, precisely on the 11th July.
HISTORICAL BACKGROUND
According to Wikipedia, the billionaire space race is the intense rivalry in “NewSpace” by entrepreneurs who have entered the space industry from other industries – particularly computing. This private industry space race of the 21st century involves sending rockets with spacecraft to the outer space both for commercial tourism and for industrial purposes.
Amongst the billionaires entering into “NewSpace” are:
- South-African-Canadian-American billionaire Elon Musk, who is behind SpaceX and a project to colonize Mars.
- American billionaire Jeff Bezos, who is behind Blue Origin and establishing a true industrial base in space.
- British billionaire Richard Branson who is behind Virgin Galactic/Virgin Orbit and space tourism, low-cost small orbital launchers, and intercontinental suborbital transit.
- Russian-Israeli billionaire Yuri Milner, who is backing the Breakthrough Starshot project for an interstellar probe.
Jeff Bezos is currently the richest man on Earth, with a net worth of $186.2 billion according to the Forbes Magazine`s list of world billionaires.
BASIC FACTS
- The Blue Origin owned by Bezos and Virgin Galactic owned by Branson will both be having their first crewed space flight.
- While the Blue Origin’s space rocket is called “New Shepard”, that of Virgin Galactic is called the “Unity 22”
- Virgin Galactic was founded by Branson in 2005 and plans for two more test flights before 2022 when they plan to go commercial.
- Bezos will be travelling alongside his younger brother Mark Bezos on the first crewed flight.
- New Shepard rocket is Blue Origin’s rocket that will carry the six-seater capsule and is expected to take an 11-minute flight that will reach the edge of space—100 kilometers (more than 60 miles) above the earth.
- This New Shepard rocket carries a capsule to an altitude of over 340,000 feet and has flown more than a dozen successful test flights without passengers.
- An extra sit on Bezos flight was auctioned to the highest bidder in June for $28 million. Bidding for the seat opened at $4.8 million but surpassed $20 million within the first few minutes of the auction.
- Bezos will be resigning as Amazon’s CEO just two weeks before the planned space trip.
- Elon Musk’s SpaceX, which recently sent a crewed mission to the international space station aboard a reusable spacecraft, is also expected to launch its first all-civilian space flight later this year.
NOTABLE QUOTE
“It’s one thing to have a dream of making space more accessible to all; it’s another for an incredible team to collectively turn that dream into reality,…As part of a remarkable crew of mission specialists, I’m honoured to help validate the journey our future astronauts will undertake and ensure we deliver the unique customer experience people expect from Virgin.”
… Branson said in a statement.
“You see the earth from space and it changes you. It changes your relationship with this planet, with humanity. It’s one Earth. I want to go on this flight because it’s the thing I’ve wanted to do all my life. It’s an adventure. It’s a big deal for me.”
… Bezos said in a statement.
WHAT WE ARE WATCHING
We are watching to the two billionaire space cowboys as the set to fly to the outer space on the two dates. We are also monitoring the Elon Musk`s own space mission and how he reacts to the development.
We shall keep our readers posted.
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