Virgin Galactic| Bezos, Branson and Musk: Who will rule space tourism? The race between the giant billionaires started. Richard Branson, Virgin Galactic prepare for launch, know who is winning the space tour

New Delhi: A war has broken out between the world’s three biggest billionaires over space tourism. Richard Branson will leave for space today. At the same time, Amazon company owner Jeff Bezos and Tesla’s Elon Musk are also ready to go to space. In such a situation, this race to go to space has become more interesting. The way three of the world’s leading industrialists are racing to capture the space tourism business, it is clear that everyone now wants to flag their business on the world of space.

So let’s try to find out how rivals’ ventures compare in this space travel race. We try to know who can beat this new tourism sector.

Ticket

Bezos, Branson and Musk are investing billions of dollars in their space startups, each promising to give customers space travel and a hefty sum of money to be a part of. Branson’s Virgin Galactic (SPCE.N) is already reported to have booked over 600 tickets, which cost around US$250,000 (over Rs. The company expects to start a full commercial service in 2022 and expects the ticket price to drop to around $40,000.

According to Reuters, an as-yet-unknown person secured a seat in one of Blue’s first suborbital missions, which was scheduled for July 20 with an auction bid of $28 million (about Rs 2.5 billion more), according to Reuters. Tesla company owner Elon Musk’s SpaceX has already taken a crew to the International Space Station, and the company plans to send a civilian crew to space in September. Musk has also said that SpaceX will send Japanese billionaire Yusaku Maezawa around the Moon with its upcoming Starship rocket in 2023.

design

Bresnan’s Virgin Galactic’s SpaceShipTwo system will go to altitude by a large carrier aircraft called VMS Eve before detaching its VSS Unity spaceplane. Unity and Imagine are two-pilot and six-passenger planes. Jeff Bezos’s Blue Origin’s New Shepard rocket-and-capsule combo heads into suborbital space before separating. The rocket section returns to the launchpad, with the pressurized capsule falling back to Earth under a parachute. It has six observation windows – the largest ever used in space. At the same time, SpaceX, the space company of billionaire Elon Musk, has a 394 feet high Starship rocket which is used to reach space.

crew and passengers

Virgin Galactic’s spacecraft can fly with six passengers, including two crew and four passengers. The Blue Origin capsule can carry up to six passengers and can fly unaided. The SpaceX Dragon capsule is capable of carrying seven people.

funding
Branson’s Virgin Galactic is a publicly funded venture. Its shares peaked at around $60 after the FAA’s approval in June 2021. Blue Origin is a privately owned company. Amazon.com Inc (AMZN.O) founder Jeff Bezos previously indicated that he would sell about $1 billion in Amazon stock annually to raise money for the venture. SpaceX is also privately owned and has raised billions of dollars in successive funding rounds. Its major investors include Alphabet and Fidelity.