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Space race: What Jeff Bezos, Elon Musk, and Richard Branson are each trying to achieve
Space companies Virgin Galactic, Blue Origin, and SpaceX are looking to make space exploration more affordable and accessible.
Science & Tech
On Sunday, July 11, English business magnate and founder of the Virgin Group (VGII) Sir Richard Branson took to the skies and beyond aboard Virgin Galactic’s (SPCE) VSS Unity spacecraft.
Branson beat Jeff Bezos’ maiden voyage aboard Blue Origin’s New Shepard suborbital launch vehicle by just over a week, with Bezos’ flight on Tuesday, July 20.
In the past decade, both publicly traded and private aerospace firms have risen into prominence with aspirations of commercializing the final frontier. These companies are ushering in a new era of space exploration and travel — one that is catalyzed by free market competition. Companies like Virgin Galactic and Blue Origin, along with Elon Musk’s SpaceX, are looking to make space exploration more affordable and accessible, as well as advance the progress of the human race.
“We are really just on the cusp of seeing the activity of commercial human space flight,” Commercial Spaceflight Federation President Karina Drees told Yahoo Finance Live. “Future generations are going to look at this moment as a pivotal moment for humanity when it comes to the expansion into space.”