Over the past few years, space travel has transitioned from a government-funded business into private industry, fueled by the personal ambitions of billionaires like Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos. Seeking to colonize space and dominate space tourism, the competition between these barons has resulted in “the dawn of the entrepreneurial space age,” according to Chad Anderson, CEO of Space Angels. While this competition has resulted in many technological advancements in space travel, it has also led to safety and other operational concerns. The debate about the company that currently dominates the space race has made 2021 a critical year for Space Race 2.0.
Blue Origin
On September 8, 2000, Blue Origin, founded by billionaire Jeff Bezos was launched with the mission to make space travel more accessible, less expensive, and more reliable through its reusable launch vehicles. Blue Origin has had many technological successes such as its vertical takeoff and vertical landing vehicles (VTVL) including the New Shepard which was successful in test flights and flew on its first mission with a crew and passengers on 20 July 2021. On this mission the New Shepard reached suborbital space, flying above the Karman line and successfully landing its space capsules and rocket booster. The recent space launch was considered a victory for Blue Origin, as it became the first company to fly paying passengers to space without encountering glitches. This mission brings Bezos closer to his dream of reducing greenhouse gases by removing heavy industries from the earth and into space.
Currently, the company is developing the Blue Moon lander which aims to make a soft landing on the moon in 2024. However, the company has experienced a few setbacks with the production of its powerful BE-4 rocket engine and accusations that the company ignores safety and quality issues for speed, compromising safety. In a whistleblower essay, Ally Abrams the former head of employee communications at the company wrote that the company struggles with engineering challenges from ignoring safety and quality on its launching vehicles. Consequently, many engineers have left the company. Moreover, the company has also been accused of toxic workplace culture, poor leadership, and sexism.
SpaceX
On May 6, 2002, Elon Musk founded the company SpaceX with a goal to colonize Mars. Musk aims to build a Starship that is fully reusable and can transport 200 people to Mars. The starship is meant to replace all the current launch vehicles that are used for human and satellite transport. Other than that, SpaceX has revolutionized space travel by inventing fully reusable rocket systems that are very reliable. In September 2020, SpaceX sent four non-professional astronauts into orbit for 3 days. More recently, SpaceX struck a deal with Nasa that could see them land on the Moon by 2024. SpaceX has partnered up with NASA successfully multiple times. This partnership has led to an agreement for SpaceX to build the first commercial moon lander that would see American astronauts return to the moon for the first time since 1969.
The agreement with NASA brings Musk one step closer to his goal of colonizing Mars and setting up a human colony. SpaceX’s superiority is the result of its advanced technology that has taken shape through spacecraft like Falcon 9. Falcon 9 is SpaceX’s main rocket that has had over 120 successful launches and is reusable in parts, which allowed it to bring down the cost of space flights. It has also built the Saturn V, the world’s tallest and heaviest rocket, which Nasa uses for its Apollo moon missions. Nasa’s increasing reliance on SpaceX technology indicates that SpaceX is far ahead of its rivals in space transportation, design, and technology.
While Blue Origin has had some degree of success in its space ambitions, the consensus is that SpaceX, at the forefront, has left its competition in the dust. As Blue Origin grapples with reports of toxic workplace culture, rapid turnover of experts, and safety concerns, SpaceX, with its mega rockets, has upstaged its rivals by winning contracts and partnerships with Nasa and creating winning spaceships with an enviable speed and efficiency. SpaceX’s recent successes make its founders' vision of colonizing Mars more probable than ever before, leading Blue Origin to decry these successes as potentially monopolistic. Even though Starship has yet to be launched and taken to space, it has already catapulted SpaceX into a new frontier of space exploration.
Work Cited
Waters, Richard. “SpaceX: How Elon Musk’s New Rocket Could Transform the Space Race.” @FinancialTimes, Financial Times, 12 Oct. 2021, www.ft.com/content/25e2292b-a910-41c8-9c55-09096895f673. Accessed 3 Nov. 2021.
Guardian staff reporter. “How Did Jeff Bezos’s Blue Origin Fail to Dominate the Billionaire Space Race?” The Guardian, The Guardian, 16 Oct. 2021, www.theguardian.com/science/2021/oct/16/jeff-bezos-blue-origin-billionaire-space-race-sexism-safety-concerns. Accessed 3 Nov. 2021.
Sheetz, Michael. “Branson Is Trailing Bezos in Space Tourism, While Musk’s SpaceX Competes in a League of Its Own.” CNBC, CNBC, 15 Oct. 2021, www.cnbc.com/2021/10/15/bransons-virgin-galactic-trails-bezos-blue-origin-in-space-tourism-while-musks-spacex-is-in-a-league-of-its-own.html. Accessed 3 Nov. 2021.
“Space Race 2.0: Is This Democratisation of Space or a High-Tech Coup?” Downtoearth.org.in, 2014, www.downtoearth.org.in/news/science-technology/space-race-2-0-is-this-democratisation-of-space-or-a-high-tech-coup--64253. Accessed 3 Nov. 2021.