The Billionaires Space Race
Who is winning the race for space?
The race to space is on and it’s one that the billionaires are winning. These ultra-rich individuals have become some of the most prolific space explorers in history and they aren’t slowing down anytime soon. They’re only getting more ambitious as they continue to explore new frontiers with their multi-billion dollar companies.
Richard Branson (Virgin Galactic)
Richard Branson has been involved in the space race since 2004 when he founded Virgin Galactic. The business started with the goal of sending paying customers into suborbital space and back to Earth for $200,000 per ticket. The first flight took place in December 2018.
In February 2019, Branson announced plans for Virgin Orbit and Virgin Hyperloop One — two new ventures that will help Branson capitalize on the burgeoning NewSpace industry.
Jeff Bezos (Blue Origin)
Jeff Bezos is the founder of Amazon.com, one of the world’s largest e-commerce companies. He has a net worth of $160 billion and has been awarded multiple honorary degrees from universities around the world.
To send humans into space, he founded Blue Origin in 2000 with a $1 billion investment through his personal wealth.
On November 23rd, 2018, Blue Origin launched its New Shepard rocket into space for its first test flight since 2016; it landed safely after reaching an altitude of 351,000 feet (107 miles or 168 kilometers).
Larry Page (Planetary Resources Investor)
Larry Page, the co-founder, and CEO of Alphabet is one of the most influential people in technology. He’s also a billionaire with an interest in space exploration. In 2013, he invested $10 million into Planetary Resources (a company that mines asteroids for minerals) and Virgin Galactic (a company that plans to take tourists into space).
Elon Musk (SpaceX)
Elon Musk is the founder of SpaceX, a space exploration company that has launched multiple rockets into space and has plans to colonize Mars.
Musk made his first fortune when he sold his software company Zip2 for $307 million in cash and shares; he then used this money to start an online bank called X.com which was later merged with Confinity and became PayPal.
After selling PayPal, Musk turned his attention toward new ventures such as Tesla Motors (which manufactures electric cars) as well as SpaceX (a private aerospace manufacturer). The net worth of Elon Musk is estimated at 20 billion dollars.
Space tourism is becoming more commonplace.
Space tourism is becoming more commonplace. Virgin Galactic, founded by Richard Branson, has already made its first successful flight to space and plans to carry out another one soon.
Amazon’s Jeff Bezos and Alphabet’s Larry Page are also planning their own space programs while Elon Musk’s SpaceX is leading the way with reusable rockets that will make it possible to reuse parts of a rocket after each launch instead of throwing them away after each mission.
Additionally, Richard Branson’s Virgin Galactic recently announced that they plan on launching a new passenger spaceship called SpaceShipTwo VSS Unity at Spaceport America in New Mexico sometime this year.
Conclusion
It looks like billionaires are going to continue to invest in space tourism, and they will likely be joined by others as well. The only question is: who will be next?
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