Tesla and X boss Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos, the founder of Amazon, are gunning for top dog status in the commercial space business with their respective companies SpaceX and Blue Origin.
So who’s winning?
SpaceX, by a light year. It has until now “dramatically outperformed” Blue Origin, said the BBC, launching rockets 134 times last year. But today’s launch will be seen as a “major step forward” for Blue Origin.
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Today Blue Origin also launched its New Glenn rocket from Florida on an inaugural mission into space, the first step into Earth’s orbit for Bezos’s company as it aims to take on the – until now – dominant SpaceX.
They also aren’t the only “massively rich billionaires” in the space race: don’t forget Richard Branson’s Virgin Galactic. The skies “could be getting crowded”.
What about the future of space exploration?
Experts believe a successful New Glenn launch will “create real competition between the two companies”, said the BBC, and could “drive down the costs” of space exploration. Nasa is “increasingly moving away” from relying on public money and government funding, and has issued “huge contracts” worth billions to private companies, most notably SpaceX.
New Glenn is about “twice as powerful” as SpaceX’s Falcon 9, said Sky News. It’s also far larger and can accommodate “bigger batches of satellites”. That said, SpaceX’s Starship “would be more powerful still”.
This week SpaceX launched Falcon 9, the world’s most active rocket, carrying more of its Starlink internet satellites as well as Moon landers for Nasa. Musk’s company is also conducting its seventh test flight of its new Starship megarocket, scheduled to lift off from Texas tonight.
