Richard Branson has surpassed Jeff Bezos. The owner of the company Virgin Galactic will make a trip to space on July 11 in principle. If the weather conditions and the wind allow it, the take off can be done without problems.
This causes a conflict between two great tycoons since the owner of Amazon, Jeff Bezos, plans to do this same mission on the 20th of the same month. These missions will serve to validate these ships for trips with human beings to the outside of our planet.
Two historical missions
It will have a total of six people on board, two of them being drivers and another four experts in cabin tasks, counting on the owner of Virgin Galactic who will see first-hand how it feels to be a cosmonaut.
The aircraft has been tested up to 22 times and is in high demand, as there are more than 500 reservations made by future customers to make these space trips. Each person must pay an amount greater than $ 200,000 for their place.
Branson has assured that in addition, after finishing his mission, he will make a very important official statement related to all those who want to become astronauts.
For his part, the owner of Amazon, Jeff Bezos, is also going to perform this feat of space travel thanks to his space travel company Blue Origin. The ship in charge of this flight is called New Shepard, which has already taken off many times before, although not as many as its “rival”.
The last time this ship was used it was without anyone on board and it served to examine the preparation of the cosmonauts. While Branson’s company has announced the price of each seat, Bezos’s company has not.
The beginning of a space race
Between these two names appears a third person who has bought his ticket for both Branson’s and Bezos’s ships: Wally Funk. This person will go on both flights and is a highly regarded aircraft pilot who is over 80 years old.
However, just paying to secure a seat on the aircraft is not enough. In order to carry out these flights, the Federal Aviation Administration needs to give you a kind of authorization that authorizes these brave millionaires to fly in these space vehicles. Branson’s company has already closed all these procedures while Bezos’s is still working on it.
If time permits, in less than three weeks we will witness two historic flights that can represent a before and after in the world of space tourism. Although there is a kind of race to see who does it better, the important thing is to guarantee the safety of the mission and make sure that everything goes as planned.