It’s been nearly 50 years since the first man landed on the moon back in July 1969 on Apollo 11 and it’s safe to say that a lot has changed in space exploration over this period of time.
The space race is historically known for being reserved for government run organisations and has become famous for its competition between whole nations, starting between the U.S. and Soviet Union in the mid to late 20th century. A lot has changed since then, as space discovery has been opened out to essentially anybody that can afford it, which as a result has seen the birth of the billionaire space race.
For nearly two decades now, some of the most famous and successful entrepreneurs have joined the space race, investing huge amounts of their wealth into this market that has become increasingly commercialised. The most notorious billionaires who have been pushing the boundaries of space exploration in particular have been Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos and Richard Branson, who are all in competition with each other to conquer the industry that is set to be worth $1 trillion by 2040. But who will get there first?
All three billionaire businessmen have space companies, named Blue Origin, SpaceX and Virgin Galactic, and all have achieved success and faced failures in their space race journey.
RS Components has looked at key milestones for SpaceX, Blue Origin and Virgin Galactic to see what they have achieved so far and who is the most ahead in the race to space.
Jeff Bezos
Jeff Bezos founded Blue Origin in 2000 and was the first to hit the market. Blue Origin is an American privately funded aerospace manufacturer and spaceflight services company who are developing a variety of technologies, with a focus on rocket-powered vertical take-off and vertical landing.
With the simple notion of this company being “launch, land, repeat” Bezos expects to revolutionize space travel in the same way he revolutionised the retail market with leading global business Amazon, which made it effortless for consumers to shop online.’ Also known for being the richest man in the world with a net worth of $131 billion, does Bezos have an advantage to winning the space race?
Elon Musk
Musk follows close behind with SpaceX – founded in 2002. SpaceX’s achievements include the first privately funded liquid-propellant rocket to reach orbit in 2008 as well as being the first private company to successfully launch, orbit, and recover a spacecraft in 2010.
Elon Musk has stood out as the most ambitious of the three billionaires with his space aspirations going way beyond Branson and Bezos’ plans to get people travelling into space. Musk’s goals reach far further, with his aim to colonise Mars, which is a key reason the entrepreneur decided to begin SpaceX in 2002. Whilst Bezos holds the most wealth overall, Musk appears most committed to the space race, holding the largest space company of all three billionaires, with over 6,000 employees based in 10 locations. It’s clear to see Musk’s strong intent to get people into outer-space and transform the world forever.
Richard Branson
The next company playing catch up is Richard Branson’s Virgin Galactic, founded in 2004, who are currently developing commercial space crafts with the aim of providing space travel for tourism and space science missions.
Over the last 19 years, these companies have reached monumental achievements. In more recent years, they have made large leaps towards their goals and in 2019 – Branson revealed that Virgin Galactic plans to begin commercial flights by mid-2019. That’s just a few months away!
Blue Origin revealed plans back in 2016 to begin flying passengers to space on the New Shepard by 2018, however, in 2018 they indicated tickets will not be selling until 2019. The New Shepard landed safely in the Texas desert after the systems 10th test flight, could we see tickets on sale by the end of this year?
SpaceX has also been busy revealing the Starship Rocket which will be used for crewed missions to the moon and mars. On top of this, Musk created quite a stir when the Falcon Heavy had it’s first test flight beyond Mars’ orbit, carrying the Tesla Roadster.
So, with huge developments and plans in the works, who will be the first to crack the market and take the lead in the billionaire space race? Will it be Musk, Bezos or Branson? Take a look at the graphic for a more detailed view of the space race so far.
