Jeff Bezos standing in front Blue Origin’s capsule for space exploration
Elon Musk and Sir Richard Branson are part of the “NewSpace” set. They all believe they were inspired to become astronauts by the 1969 moon landing.
Amazon founder Bezos looked poised to become the first to go to space. He had announced plans for launch on Blue Origin’s New Shepard spacecraft, July 20. But Branson beat him to it.
Virgin Galactic Astronaut001 was the British billionaire who made space in suborbital flight on September 9, nine days ahead of Bezos. He also flew test flights on July 11.
Bezos travelled to space on July 20 with his younger brother Mark, Oliver Daemen, an 18-year-old physics student whose dad purchased his ticket, and pioneering female astronaut Wally Funk, 82.
Musk, the founder of Tesla and SpaceX, has stated that he would like to travel into space and even “die on Mars”, but he hasn’t said when. However, Virgin Galactic has booked a flight ticket for him with Virgin Galactic.
SpaceX was the first operator of’space tourism to launch a civilian crew into space. The Inspiration4 mission was funded by Jared Isaacman, a billionaire.
Elon Musk was a billionaire who is obsessed with space and built the Dragon capsule as well as the SpaceX rocket. He took off on September 16 for three days of orbital travel, going higher than that at the International Space Station.
SpaceX is leading in the larger billionaire space race, with many launches carrying NASA equipment and partners to take tourists to space.
On February 6 2018, SpaceX sent rocket towards the orbit of Mars, 140 million miles away, with Musk’s own red Tesla roadster attached.
Elon Musk and his Dragon Crew capsule
SpaceX also took two teams of astronauts with ESA, NASA and JAXA crew to the International Space Station.|International Space Station, with crew from NASA, ESA and JAXA, the Japanese space agency.
SpaceX sent 60 satellites in batches into space for Starlink, its beta network that provides fast internet access to rural areas.
Virgin Galactic is taking a new approach to space exploration. Branson has partnered with Virgin Galactic. It has repeatedly, and successfully, conducted test flights of the Virgin Galactic’s Unity space plane.
The first took place in December 2018 and the latest on May 22, with the flight accelerating to more than 2,000 miles per hour (Mach 2.7).
More than 600 affluent customers to date, including celebrities Brad Pitt and Katy Perry, have reserved a $250,000 (£200,000) seat on one of Virgin’s space trips. Expect to pay $350,000 for the final tickets.
Branson previously stated that he expected Elon Musk, his private rocket company SpaceX to win the race for Mars.
Richard Branson and the Virgin Galactic craft
SpaceShipTwo has the ability to carry six people and two pilots. Every passenger has the exact same seat position, with 2 large windows: one on the side and one above the head.
It measures 60 ft in length and has a cabin measuring 90 inches. This allows astronauts maximum freedom to floate in zero gravity.
Before the engine can ignite, it climbs up to 50.000ft. SpaceShipTwo is separated from White Knight II its carrier craft once it has reached 50 miles.
Astronauts are passengers who reach the Karmanline, the boundary to Earth’s atmospheric atmosphere.
After that, the spaceship will make an orbital flight with about six minutes of weightlessness. The entire flight lasts approximately 1.5 hours.
Bezos revealed in April 2017 that he finances Blue Origin with around $1 billion (£720 million) of Amazon stock each year.
It consists of an astronaut capsule with pressurized crew attached to a New Shepard booster rocket.
The capsule reached its maximum height of 65 miles (104 kms). This was just short of the official space threshold. It landed vertically after seven minutes.
Blue Origin is currently working on New Glenn to build a next-generation heavy lift rocket that can compete with SpaceX Falcon 9.