Jeff Bezos in front of the Blue Origin space capsule
Nicknamed the “NewSpace” ensemble, Jeff Bezos, Sir Richard Branson and Elon Musk say they were inspired by the first lunar landing in 1969, when the United States defeated the Soviet Union in the space race, and there is no doubt that how much it would mean for each of them to win the “new space race.”
Amazon founder Bezos appeared to be the first of the three to fly into space, after announcing plans to launch aboard Blue Origin’s New Shepard spacecraft, the space company, on 20 of July.
The billionaire mogul will travel with his younger brother Mark, winner of a $ 28 million charity auction, and 82-year-old female pioneer astronaut Wally Funk.
Still, Branson has announced that he plans to make a suborbital flight nine days before Bezos and his brother. He revealed on Twitter that he plans to be the 001 astronaut on the July 11 test flight of Virgin Galactic.
Although Musk, founder of SpaceX and Tesla, has said he wants to go into space and even “die on Mars,” he has not said when it could explode into orbit.
SpaceX appears to lead the most multimillion-dollar space race with numerous launches bringing NASA teams to the ISS and collaborations to send tourists into space in 2021.
On February 6, 2018, SpaceX launched rockets into orbit around Mars, 140 million kilometers away, with Musk’s own red Tesla roadster connected.
Elon Musk with his Dragon Crew capsule
NASA has already selected two astronauts who will be aboard the first manned Dragon mission.
SpaceX has also begun sending batches of 60 satellites into space to help form its Starlink network.
Musk hopes this will provide an interconnected network of satellites around the Earth that will transmit free Internet to people around the world.
Branson and Virgin Galactic take a different approach to conquering space. He has repeatedly and successfully conducted test flights of the Virgin Galactic Unity space plan.
The first took place in December 2018 and the last on May 22, with an accelerated flight of more than 2,000 miles per hour (Mach 2.7).
More than 600 wealthy clients to date, including celebrities Brad Pitt and Katy Perry, have booked a $ 250,000 (£ 200,000) seat on one of Virgin’s space trips.
Branson has previously said he expects Elon Musk to win the race on Mars with his private rocket company SpaceX.
Richard Branson with the Virgin Galactic trade
SpaceShipTwo can carry six passengers and two pilots. Each passenger has the same seating position with two large windows: one on the side and the other at the top.
The spacecraft is 60 feet long with a 90-inch-diameter cabin that allows astronauts to float to the maximum in zero gravity.
It climbs up to 50,000 feet before the rocket engine starts. SpaceShipTwo separates from its transport vessel, White Knight II, once it exceeds the 50-mile mark.
Passengers become “astronauts” when they reach the Karman line, the boundary of the Earth’s atmosphere.
The spacecraft will then make a suborbital journey with approximately six minutes of weightlessness, lasting approximately 1.5 hours throughout the flight.
Bezos revealed in April 2017 that it finances Blue Origin with nearly 1 billion euros (720 million pounds) each year.
The system consists of a pressure crew capsule on a reusable “New Shepard” rocket.
Bezos is one of the richest men in the world and Blue Origin has successfully flown the New Shepard rocket 15 times.
At its peak, the capsule reached 104 kilometers (65 miles), just above the official space threshold and landed vertically seven minutes after takeoff.