Billionaires vying for space, British surpassing the Americans
KATHMANDU: JULY 16 – It has been exactly 60 years since humans have been in space. On April 12, 1961, Yuri Alekseyevich Gagarin of the then Soviet Union arrived. The space race between the two countries began when Gagarin arrived in space from the Vostok 1 spacecraft. After the Soviet Union reached space, tensions were added to the then United States. And the United States has increased investment in space. However, he was the first to set foot on the moon.
American astronauts Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin landed on the moon on July 20, 1969, eight years after the Soviet Union stepped into space. Currently, the United States, Russia, and China are the leading countries in the space sector. The United States, Russia, Japan, and Europe share a common space station. China is building its own space station. It is said to be completed by 2022.
I was once a child with a dream looking up to the stars. Now I'm an adult in a spaceship looking down to our beautiful Earth. To the next generation of dreamers: if we can do this, just imagine what you can do https://t.co/Wyzj0nOBgX #Unity22 @virgingalactic pic.twitter.com/03EJmKiH8V
— Richard Branson (@richardbranson) July 11, 2021
Thus, there is an ‘open secret’ in which countries compete in space. Countries are no longer the only ones in the space race. Dollar billionaires are also connected. By opening their own companies, they have joined this race. Leading the race are US billionaire Jeff Bezos, owner of the Washington Post and Amazon, and Elon Musk, another billionaire and owner of the Tesla Company.
Bezos’ Blue Origin company has been in the race to build a spacecraft since 2000. Musk’s SpaceX has been in operation since 2002 and has been active in building spacecraft. Branson, a British billionaire, opened the Virgin Galactic Company in 2004 to build a spacecraft.
The race for the first billionaire to reach space from his own plane was won by the British
There was a kind of competition for billionaires to reach space on their own spacecraft. A few months ago, on July 20, US billionaire Jeff Bezos made a public announcement to go into space from the Blue Origin spacecraft. However, British billionaire Branson, who was silent on his announcement, flew ahead of him from his airline Virgin Galactic.
He arrived in space on July 11 along with five other crew members of his plane, according to various world media. He landed an hour after taking off from the southwestern US state of New Mexico, the BBC reported. Branson has made public on his social media the images of the body being moved without gravity in space. He had reached 85 kilometers above sea level.
A joint photo of SpaceX’s Elon Musk arriving in New Mexico and congratulating Branson was made public. However, despite the personal congratulations of Jeff Bezos of Blue Origin, who is in the competition, the organization has argued from Twitter that Branson has not reached the space. Blue Origin has argued on social media that space starts only from 100 kilometers above and that Branson has not arrived.
Blue Origin has written that space will start only from the ‘Karman Line’ which will come after reaching 100 kilometers. However, Branson’s supporters have argued that the US government will start space from 85 kilometers.
