send us all into space. Elon Musk and SpaceX. Jeff Bezos and Blue Origin. So who is gonna get
us to space first? Blue Origin thinks it's the tortoise in the fable of the tortoise and the
hare. The hare took the early lead in the race but in the end, the tortoise won. The moral of
the story is slow and steady wins the race. It appears SpaceX is ahead. Liftoff. In May 2020,
SpaceX became the first private company to send humans into orbit by flying two NASA astronauts
to the International Space Station. On the other hand, Blue Origin has yet to launch a rocket into
orbit, let alone with humans on board. Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos have slightly different motivations
for going to space. Musk believes humans are at risk of becoming extinct because of climate
change, the threat of artificial intelligence, or an attack on the planet. So we're more likely to
survive if we live on multiple planets. Musk has made it no secret he wants to colonize Mars. It's
very important that we do so as soon as possible. I think while the window of opportunity is open. I
call upon the public to support this goal. Bezos has a slightly different motivation for going
to space. He believes the Earth is irreplaceable and wants to preserve it for future generations.
He wants to tap into the unlimited resources in space, specifically from the moon. There's a lot
of ice at the moon's poles which could be mined for fuel to power Blue Origin's space vehicles.
Bezos ultimately wants to create something straight out of seventies science fiction:
space colonies. Large, floating settlements holding a million people or more that can
support animals and plants as well. The ISS looks tiny in comparison. We can have a trillion humans
in the source system which means we'd have a thousand Mozarts and a thousand Einsteins.
This would be an incredible civilization. In order for their visions to become a reality,
they have to significantly reduce the cost of each launch because usually, a rocket is thrown away
after one use. The focus is now on developing reusable rockets. Specifically, reusing the
booster which is the lower portion of the rocket. It's the most expensive part. In December 2015,
SpaceX landed its Falcon 9 booster back on Earth. That was a huge feat for the company. Meanwhile,
Blue Origin has yet to launch any rocket into orbit. It is developing one with a reusable
booster. New Glenn aims to go to space in 2021. It will be much larger than SpaceX's Falcon 9. SpaceX
is now setting its sights on developing a fully reusable rocket called Starship to carry people
to the moon, Mars, and back. Even though it seems Blue Origin is far behind, do not count Jeff Bezos
out. Blue Origins motto is Gradatim Ferociter - apologies if I didn't get that quite right.
Translated from Latin that means step by step, ferociously. Bezos's company is quietly developing
a rocket called New Armstrong that might be fully reusable. We don't know much about it as of the
making of this video. The company is also getting better at launching and landing. In November 2015,
its New Shepard rocket successfully landed back on Earth for the first time. The reason I said Blue
Origin has yet to launch a rocket into orbit is because the New Shepard is not designed to reach
orbit. It only travels to the boundary between Earth's atmosphere and space. It will be used for
space tourists in the future. One of the biggest differences between these two companies boils
down to money and it could explain why SpaceX appears to act with more urgency. SpaceX has
had to scramble for contracts to survive from the beginning. Musk threw his personal fortune into
the company when he created it in 2002 when the financial services company he co-founded, x.com,
merged with a rival and became PayPal and eBay bought PayPal in 2002. Musk walked away with
$180 million. He sunk $100 million into SpaceX and the rest into Tesla and SolarCity. But it
takes a lot of money to run a rocket business. SpaceX had three failed launches before its
Falcon 1 rocket made it to orbit in September 2008. That was the defining moment for the
company. But SpaceX was nearly bankrupt. Then, a Christmas miracle happened. NASA came through with
a $1.6 billion dollar contract two days before Christmas that saved SpaceX. On the other hand,
Blue Origin is backed by the richest person on the planet. Jeff Bezos is of course the CEO of
Amazon. He quietly started Blue Origin in 2000. He has been obsessed with space ever since the
moon landing. Bezos sells $1 billion or more of his Amazon stock every year and puts it into Blue
Origin so his private space company doesn't have the same financial constraints. It's not
under time pressure to be revenue positive. It can execute slowly and methodically. At the beginning
of the video, I asked the question: who's gonna get us to space first? But maybe that actually was
not the right question to ask. Maybe it's not a competition with only one winner and we shouldn't
think of it as a race between a tortoise and a hare. There might be room for more than one
company to win. After all, we are dealing with the infinite possibilities of space
and the future of humanity. Thank you so much for watching, I'm Cindy Pom. If you like what you saw,
give us a like, and don't forget to subscribe to our new channel. I'm gonna be doing a lot
more videos just like this on topics that I find super interesting and I hope to see you soon.