The Billionaire Space Race 101: SpaceX, Blue Origin and Virgin Galactic.
This article is a brief intro for those who know little but want to learn more about the current state & trend of Space Tourism. Welcome any feedback and updates, especially those who work at these companies!
My motivation is to use this topic to stimulate more interests & discussions in Commercial Space Travel, as we are raising a new Space Fund. If you’re interested in more investment details: p@outliers.fund
SpaceX by Elon Musk since 2002
SpaceX designs, manufactures and launches advanced rockets and spacecraft with the ultimate goal of making human a multi-planet species.
Key Achievements
- 2008: The first privately funded liquid-propellant rocket to reach orbit (Falcon 1).
- 2010: The first private company to successfully launch, orbit, and recover a spacecraft (Dragon).
- 2012: The first private company to send a spacecraft to the International Space Station (Dragon).
- 2015: The first propulsive landing for an orbital rocket (Falcon 9).
- 2017: The first reuse of an orbital rocket (Falcon 9).
- 2018: The first private company to launch an object to orbit around the sun (Falcon Heavy’s payload of a Tesla Roadster).
Space Tourism Services
SpaceX offers most conventional options in space tourism services, including the Moon Trip & ISS Trip that tour humans around the Moon or ISS for a few days. In addition, SpaceX also proposed an On Earth Trip for transporting humans anywhere on Earth within 30 minutes, which has great potential to disrupt the current aviation industry.
Products & Technologies
Blue Origin (B.O.) by Jeff Bezos since 2000
Blue Origin is an aerospace manufacturer that initially focused on sub-orbital spaceflight services but shifted to orbital spaceflight technology & business in 2014. B.O.’s mission is “building a road to Space with reusable launch vehicles, so our children can build the future.”
Key Achievements
- 2014: B.O. & United Launch Alliance (ULA) signed partnership whereby B.O. would produce a large rocket engine (BE-4) for the Vulcan, the successor to Atlas V which has launched US national security payloads since the early 2000s.
- 2016: Bezos announced B.O.’s first orbital spacecraft New Glenn and to spend $1B per year from the sales of his equity in Amazon.
- 2017: B.O. launched a technology that could one day treat chest trauma in a space environment, and announced its 1st (Eutelsat) & 2nd (OneWeb) paying customers for orbital satellite launches .
- 2019: B.O. announced the robotic space cargo carrier and lander Blue Moon for making cargo deliveries to the Moon.
- 2020: NASA selected B.O. National Team to return humans to the Moon (Artemis Human Landing System).
Space Tourism Services
New Shepard sends humans & payloads to Space with rocket but the whole launch lasts for only 11 minutes. Once reaching Space, the bottom part of the capsule will separate and land with parachutes. New Glenn is a heavy-lift launch vehicle that can carry humans & payloads to orbit Earth, featuring a reusable first stage for 25 millions. Blue Moon delivers, hosts, and deploys payloads to the lunar surface. Very recently (Apr 30, 2020), NASA selected B.O. National Team to develop the Human Landing System (HLS) for its Artemis program.
Products & Technologies
Virgin Galactic (V.G.) by Richard Branson since 2004
Key Achievements
- 2014: V.G. launched the first VSS Enterprise (outsourced to The Spaceship Company) but it broke up in flight and crashed, resulted in the pilot killed (SpaceShipTwo).
- 2015: V.G. announced an investment into the OneWeb satellite constellation providing world Internet access service (WorldVu).
- 2018: V.G. achieved its first suborbital space flight and officially entered the outer space by US standards (VSS Unity).
- 2019: V.G. completed a merger with Social Capital Hedosophia to create the world’s first & only publicly traded commercial human spaceflight company (NYSE: SPCE).
- 2020: V.G. enters Space Act Agreement with NASA to advance high Mach technologies.
Space Tourism Services
What V.G. proposed (SpaceShipTwo) is essentially a rocket-powered aircraft that can reach the edge of space (80km) but still within Earth’s atmosphere (100km Kármán line), which can carry 2 pilots and 6 passengers. This 90-minute $250k package of micro-gravity experience targets at wealthy celebrities, thrill-seekers as well as research scientists.
Products & Technologies
Founder Stories & Company Cultures
How fascinating it is to see some of the best minds on this planet to race for Space! They’re approaching Space in very different directions, which I think are based on their unique backgrounds & company cultures.
Elon Musk (48 y-o, $39B n-w)
An African who dropped out from Stanford PhD in applied physics & material sciences, co-founded X.com (now PayPal), Tesla, OpenAI, The Boring Company, etc. In 2002, Musk founded SpaceX with the concept of Mars Oasis in an attempt to regain public interest in space exploration, after realizing the raw materials for building a rocket were only 3% of the sales price at the time.
Jeff Bezos (56 y-o, $141B n-w)
An American who graduated from Princeton B.S. EECS, worked at Wall Street for 8 years before founding Amazon in 1994. In 1999, after watching the rocketry biopic film October Sky, Bezos discussed with SciFi author Neal Stephenson about forming a space company. Then he founded Blue Origin right after the peak of dot-com bubble (Sep 2000). He rarely talks about B.O. but once said “it’s the most important work I’m doing.”
Richard Branson (69 y-o, $4B n-w)
A British who dropped out from high school at 16 to create his first venture (Student Magazine). At 19 he founded Virgin Records, which later became Virgin Group and now controls over 400 companies in retail, music, and transportation (land/air/sea). In 2004, he founded Virgin Galactic, aiming to provide suborbital spaceflights for space tourism and space science missions.
Comparison
To illustrate their differences, I’d like to use Engineer, Businessman, and Artist to describe Musk, Bezos, and Branson accordingly.
In terms of Engineering Innovations, SpaceX is no doubt far ahead of B.O., while B.O. is even farther ahead of V.G. Musk as an engineer at heart (who also studied Physics) seems to have the best ability on assessing Technical Feasibility, making SpaceX the first mover of many milestones.
In terms of Industry Relations, B.O. stands out with it clients, partners, and contracts from NASA, thanks to Bezos being the richest businessman on Earth and B.O.’s focus on Business Viability. According to SpaceNews, B.O. focuses more resources on selling engines than building the New Glenn.
V.G. outsources most of its R&D to joint ventures and focuses on Engaging Public’s Interest by selling many tickets early on and making itself the first & only space stock that everyone can trade. This strategic approach probably comes from Branson’s artist & adventurer’s mindset and his 50 years experience in retail & airlines industry.
Summary
Humans are currently facing urgent problems such as pandemic vs long-term problems like climate change, resource depletion, etc. The latter are equally critical but often neglected by humans until they become urgent ones. These visionaries could’ve enjoyed the rest of their lives easily as billionaires, but they chose to take such difficult path to push the boundaries of humanity. With my respect for them, I expect myself to think far, start small and learn fast to an extent that I could also be helpful to these world-scale problems. If you share similar visions or motivations, I’d like to discuss & learn together!
If you wish to talk more about investment or learn more about our new Space Fund, feel free to reach out: p@outliers.fund
