it's a space race and not just between countries two of the world's top billionaires have been in
a 15 plus year feud with each other elon musk has spacex and amazon billionaire jeff bezos
runs blue origin and both have been in a race to get people to the edge of space and beyond but it
turns out it's not just these guys trying to get to the common line first and it looks like another
billionaire is about to beat them to it and where is nasa in all this rocket rivalry let's find out
jeff bezos is currently the wealthiest person in the world and runs amazon and
aerospace company blue origin which has the goal of sending people to the moon elon musk
is the dual ceo running both tesla and spacex over the years a hated rivalry between these two has
resulted in some bitter name calling and twitter spats but now bezos is passing musk in a major way
or is he jeff bezos recently made the announcement that he will fly to the edge of space soon on his
new shepard rocket to prove that it's completely safe for space tourists elon musk on the other
hand has no set plans to go into space as of yet but expressed interest in joining
japanese billionaire yusaku mezawa in his trip around the moon in the new starship super heavy
rocket that's scheduled to launch in 2023 musk has also said he wants to move to mars and live
out his life there but is bezos better than elon and how did this rivalry between these guys start
by 2004 both blue origin and spacex were still in their early stages and neither had completed any
launches yet however bezos and musk had met each other to discuss their reusable rocket ambitions
and let's just say it didn't go well musk said that he tried to give bezos some advice but
bezos largely ignored musk from that time onward musk and bezos kept to themselves but the rivalry
heated up again in 2013 when both companies tried to lease the same launch pad from nasa
spacex wanted exclusive use of the nasa launch pad and blue origin filed a formal protest with the
government to prevent spacex from using the pad bezel suggested that it should be converted into
a commercial spaceport for all launch companies musk called this a phony blocking tactic and took
a swipe at blue origin saying the company hasn't created a reliable orbital spacecraft even though
they've spent over 10 years to build one however musk said that if blue origin somehow designed a
vehicle qualified to nasa's human rating standards that can dock with the space station spacex would
gladly accommodate their needs but then musk said frankly i think we're more likely to discover
unicorns dancing in the flame duct by the way spacex won the right to take over the launch pad
and that isn't all the misfortune that blue origin has suffered they also recently lost a contract
with nasa to spacex to build the lunar lander that will deliver astronauts to the surface of the moon
in 2024 bezos was not happy about the decision and filed a protest accusing nasa of moving the goal
posts for contract bidders at the last moment this was a huge blow for blue origin of course musk
fired back at bezos and his 50 page protest with a tweet that said can't get it up to orbit lol
that's elon musk for you but we told you in the beginning that there's another billionaire that
looks like he's about to beat both musk and bezos at their own game virgin galactic and its founder
richard branson have also been working for the last 20 years getting the vss unity rocket plane
riding to the limit of the earth's atmosphere he says that elon musk is fixated on mars
and it's his life mission while he and bezos want to use space to better the earth this rocket plane
is really something else to see it's carried in the middle by a big mother ship jet named eve and
when at the correct altitude spaceship ii unity is released and its rocket pushes the craft to three
times the speed of sound it then makes a sharp climb upwards until it reaches the edge of space
in the spacecraft's test flight it performed a slow backflip by rotating its wings
vss unity then returns from the edge of space and lands on a runway much like the space shuttle
but even the vss unity had a problem and a previous flight attempt was called off
because of an electronic interference issue where the spacecraft's rocket shut off early
before it glided safely back to earth however virgin galactic says they got the problem fixed
and have unveiled the spaceship 3 and it looks incredibly awesome now there are probably a lot
of elon musk haters out there but it looks like spacex is beating everyone in the space race
think about it spacex has built and designed the falcon 9 and falcon heavy launch vehicles
but that's not all the company also builds its own rocket engines the merlin one and kestrel
plus they've been talking about building a new much bigger high level engine the merlin ii
but it's always the goal of spacex to be able to reuse the first stage of a rocket
and in december 2015 spacex landed its falcon 9 rocket for the first time
spacex also pulled off the first rocket landing at sea on a drone ship in april 2016 and in 2019
spacex wowed the world again with a triple booster landing and two of the boosters
landing on the ground in perfect tandem while the main core landed on a drone ship in the ocean
what about spacex getting people to the edge of space like blue origin or virgin galactic let's
face it the goals of spacex are different from the competitors and the main focus is putting people
on the surface of the moon and mars and this is where the spacex starship comes in it's a
fully reusable two-stage to orbit super heavy lift launch vehicle that can take 100 people into space
the starship has seen some real fast development since 2019 beginning with the star hopper that was
successful in launching and landing and looking real cool doing it spacex then built starship sn5
it looked like a giant grain ceilo and it was surreal watching this thing take off
hover and then land successfully but not all spacex starships have landed in one piece
starship sn9 crashed on landing and exploded in a fireball sn10 landed but exploded shortly after an
sn11 successfully soared to a 10 kilometer altitude but exploded shortly after that's
three starship failures in a row however elon musk was quoted as saying we expect it to explode it's
weird if it doesn't explode frankly now the u.s federal aviation administration has stepped in
and they don't believe these failures are intended and are looking closer at spacex's starship
so what are the new plans for our billionaire spacemen bezos is set to go into space in his new
shepard vehicle on july 20 2021 with his brother mark and a very rich anonymous online bidder
who put down 4.8 million dollars to go for a ride the capsule on the top can carry up to six people
and reaches an altitude of more than 100 kilometers called sub-orbital space the
flight lasts about 10 to 15 minutes enough time for passengers to float in complete weightlessness
let's see if it all plays out as planned because we all know that anything can change at any moment
the question on everyone's mind is is it risky to be sending these billionaires into space
the big news is that while we're making this video virgin galactic got their first official
okay from the federal aviation administration to fly passengers to the edge of space that's right
even you could grab a ticket on a rocket to the edge of space right now if you have the money and
no word yet on how much the tickets will go for but you can bet they'll be expensive spacex is
really busy trying to get their futuristic bullet shaped starship ready to take people to mars
and the latest starship sn15 just performed a near perfect soft landing and it didn't explode when it
comes to human space flight spacex is still at the top on april 23 2021 spacex's crew 2 mission
sent four more astronauts to the international space station aboard the company's crew dragon
spacecraft making it the third successful manned launch before astronauts had to hitch a ride on
russian spacecraft and while branson and bezos are both on a mission to convince and assure
people that a rocket ride is fun and safe by going up first themselves let's keep in mind that even
spacecraft that have undergone years of testing can end up failing or crashing take the failure
of the space shuttle challenger in 1986 when it broke apart just 73 seconds into its flight
or the shuttle columbia when it disintegrated in earth's atmosphere on february the 1st 2003
that said if you want to see a video about the most devastating spacecraft failures let us know
in the comments speaking of nasa spacecraft where do they sit in the space race because of all this
competition nasa looks like it's falling behind a little however they're still in the race with
their huge rocket the space launch system it's the most powerful launch vehicle built since the 1960s
it stands 98 meters tall has four engines that produce 8.8 million pounds of thrust that insane
amount of power can put 27 tonnes of cargo into space that's 11 large sport utility vehicles
and yes these are the same rs-25 engines that were used in this space shuttle program
and this is the rocket that nasa will use for their artemis program but is this rocket ready
to do the job of sending astronauts to the moon and is nasa falling behind in rocket technology
for now the space launch system is still being assembled and the artemis project is still set
to get us back to the moon by 2024. spacex is now helping out on the lunar lander and jeff bezos
is not happy about that and while we're on the subject we recently made a video about
how china is trying to overtake nasa in space programs however it's already becoming more
difficult for a state corporation to stay in this market since they're responsible to taxpayers
for their failures unlike private companies you can check out that here if you missed it
private companies have endured hundreds of failures rocket crashes and huge financial
losses but now they've conquered space and the future of space exploration looks bright you