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SPACE RACE
Space race of century heats up as Bezos’ Blue Origin roars into orbit – but will Musk still win battle of billionaires?
Watch our video package with space expert Martin Barstow
BILLIONAIRE duo Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos are set to do battle in a supersonic race to the stars with both men now officially leaving orbit.
The business moguls are vying to be crowned as the kings of space with them already flexing their interplanetary might with their towering rockets and ambitious plans for the future.
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A heated rivalry is starting to emerge between Elon Musk's SpaceX and Jeff Bezos' Blue Origin companies.
The pair are both frantically working on their mammoth rocket ships to stamp their authority on the 21st-century space race, but who is currently edging ahead?
Bezos, the second-richest human alive, has been trying to break through into the world of intergalactic travel for years - finally finding success last month.
He managed to blast his first spaceship, the New Glenn, into orbit in January and surpassed the achievements of Musk by using a more powerful rocket.
The Tesla CEO has been at the forefront of space expeditions in recent years ever since he launched SpaceX in 2002.
Musk, the world's wealthiest person, has sent over 435 rockets into space - including the Falcon range and is now testing out the formidable Starship.
Professor of Astrophysics and Space Science, Martin Barstow, gave his verdict on which billionaire's space company is edging ahead.
He told The Sun: "I think Bezos is a bit behind the game and I'm not quite sure why.
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"Musk has taken more risks in getting to where SpaceX has got to.
"I don't think he has any more technical skills than Jeff Bezos but he's set out a really good dynamic and direction for his company."
Watch moment Jeff Bezos' Blue Origin rocket blasts into space in bid to rival Elon Musk's SpaceX
Both men want similar outcomes from their investments and have been full of praise for each other's work in the past.
Musk has been vocal about his desires to put man back on the Moon before jetting off to populate Mars.
Bezos has also echoed these wishes while also wanting to create private space stations for inter-galactic holidays.
Both are also setting their sights on satellites to help bolster up broadband internet services for Amazon and Starlink.
Barstow, who teaches at the University of Leicester, is among a number of experts who are hopeful the friendly competition will only push both companies forwards to ensure more giant leaps for mankind.
Bezos' recent success has left him hot on the heels of Musk with the pair of them now raring to complete commercial space travel.
BEZOS' NEW GLENN
Blue Origin's 321ft New Glenn rocket took off from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida in January.
Hundreds of hardworking staff members watched on as the spaceship made history as the first in company history to reach orbit.
The New Glenn is a powerful rocket which is capable of carrying dozens of satellites into space.
One of the main reasons for this is due to Amazon's Project Kuiper.
Bezos is aiming to deploy over 3,000 low-earth satellites to help broadband internet services.
The Kuiper project is again a direct competitor of Musk's Starlink megaconstellation.
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Bezos' company had already made several suborbital flights using a smaller rocket but never breached outside of orbit.
The New Shepard carried equipment and even passengers to the edge of space but it was quickly outdone by the New Glenn.
Blue Origin are also now working on a fancy space station floating above Earth designed for tourists.
Orbital Reef has been described as a "mixed-use business park" that will serve as a science lab, a hotel and much more.
One key area where Bezos is leading the way against Musk is in actual self-experience inside a spaceship.
He rode on board the New Shepard NS-16 manned mission in July 2021 and managed to reach 351,000ft in the 10 minute journey.
Musk has never actually been to space himself despite the countless missions he has helped to launch.
MUSK'S FLYING FALCONS
Elon Musk and SpaceX have been the leaders of the push for space travel across the last decade.
Their Falcon 9 rocket has been the star in the SpaceX arsenal with it becoming the first orbital class rocket capable of re-flight when it first took off in 2010.
Since then it has completed a whopping 425 missions with 381 successful landings - including the first to take humans to orbit a decade later.
This makes it the most-launched American orbital rocket in history standing at almost 230ft tall.
Musk soon outdid his own achievements with a larger version of the same rocket called the Falcon Heavy.
It features three reusable Falcon 9 nine-engine cores capable of generating more thrust than 18 747 aircrafts combined.
It has completed 11 missions so far with the maiden launch being in 2018.
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STARSHIP HOPES
Since finding success with the Falcon rocket variations, Musk has started to create an even bigger and better space vehicle.
The 400ft Starship is the most lucrative rocket among the SpaceX collection despite it still being in its infancy.
In January, it completed its seventh test flight with the team managing to successfully catch the booster back on the ground.
This Super Heavy unit, made up of 33 Raptor engines, has now been retrieved on multiple occasions in a remarkable feat of technology and engineering.
What is SpaceX?
SPACEX is a cash-flushed rocket company that wants to take man to Mars.
It was set up by eccentric billionaire Elon Musk in 2002 and is based in Hawthorne, California.
SpaceX's first aim was to build rockets that can autonomously land back on Earth for refurbishment and re-use.
The technology makes launching and operating space flights more efficient, and therefore cheaper.
SpaceX currently uses its reusable Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy rockets to fly cargo to the International Space Station (ISS) for Nasa.
It also carries satellites and other space tech into orbit for various government agencies and multinational companies.
The company took astronauts to the ISS for the first time in 2020.
Other future missions involve carrying tourists to the ISS and astronauts to the Moon and Mars.
Musk has repeatedly said he believes humanity must colonise Mars to save itself from extinction.
He plans to get a SpaceX rocket to the Red Planet by 2027.
The purpose of the intricate catching system - often labelled as the "chopsticks maneuver" - is to allow the Starship to repeatedly launch.
When it lands it does so vertically unlike normal rockets.
This allows it to be remounted to the booster, quickly refuelled and then blast off again.
Musk has said he hopes to get the rocket to boost off and return as many as three times a day in the future.
In comparison, the Blue Origin New Glenn uses a more traditional heat shield approach with just the capsule coming back instead of the rocket.
Re-usability is baked into what SpaceX are doing and that's their big innovation
Martin Barstow
This difference is another example of why the professor believes Musk is leading the way.
"Re-usability is baked into what SpaceX are doing and that's their big innovation," he added.
The first crewed mission to the moon for the Starship is expected to launch at some point beyond April 2025.
Musk believes up to 100 people could be transported on the long duration interplanetary trips.
Professor Barstow praised SpaceX for managing to pull off some "extraordinary stuff" such as the remarkable booster catching feat.
Another thing that has left the seasoned space whizz impressed is how they are making space expeditions cheaper and more common.
He said: "You see a lot of the headlines with Starship and things but behind all that, they've basically created a rocket system that's lowered the price of getting into space by about ten times."
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The Starship costs just $1million per launch - much less than any alternative.
This allows for more access to explore space as the trips can be done more frequently.
It will also improve how space is viewed and advance what we know about the vast regions as well as helping to identify issues back down on Earth.
"We can do more of that now and it costs us less, and that's only a good thing," he added.
Despite the confidence in the Starship it has faced several issues in the recent past.
Its January launch caused chaos in the sky - as planes swerved to avoid falling rocket debris.
The ship broke apart 10 minutes into an unmanned test flight - resulting in a shower of missing parts streaking across the sky.
Putting a positive spin on the rocket failure, Musk posted the launch video with the caption: "Success is uncertain, but entertainment is guaranteed!"
LIFE ON MARS
Musk has always been an ambitious entrepreneur who is never content with simply reaching his goals.
The same applies to his space expeditions with the SpaceX chief planning on reaching the moon and then taking it one step further and landing on Mars.
A date is yet to be announced for the potential first Martian mission but it was given a huge boost on Monday when newly-elected US President Donald Trump said he hopes to order a mission soon.
Trump spoke at his inauguration ceremony saying: "We will pursue our manifest destiny into the stars.
"Launching American astronauts to plant the Stars and Stripes on the planet Mars."
Elon Musk has certainly made no secret of the fact that his ambition is to go to Mars and having the backing of the president is a good thing
Martin Barstow
Musk - who has quickly become close friends with the President - was seen in the crowd with a beaming smile across his face.
Many feel Musk's dream of getting humans to live on Mars could become a pivotal national priority under the Trump administration.
Professor Barstow said: "Elon Musk has certainly made no secret of the fact that his ambition is to go to Mars and having the backing of the president is a good thing.
"It means that what goes on in NASA will become aligned with SpaceX."
This political and financial backing is set to keep Musk and SpaceX in the driving seat for the Space Race.
Speaking on if the idea of a billionaire-fuelled race is actually a good thing for the globe, Martin said: "I have mixed feelings about it if I'm honest.
"I think it's good that people are investing money in developing new ways of getting into space."
But he thinks the challenges come from what is going on away from the impressive visuals and technological marvels - space sustainability.
"I don't see enough attention being paid to that by Bezos' and Musk's activities," Barstow said.
"So they're looking at the sharp end technology and they can definitely put the constellations up there, and they can definitely do do the broadband.
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"The problem then is that what do you do with all that stuff in space.
"I'm not convinced that SpaceX really worries enough about that in the way that they approach their rocket development."
Are China also in the space race?
By Millie Turner, Senior Technology & Science Reporter
China has been making increasingly firm announcements regarding its own launch plans to enter into a space race and reach Mars.
In November, a new study suggested China could leave for Mars and return to Earth with samples of Martian soil roughly two years ahead of Nasa and the European Space Agency (ESA).
Similar to its plans for the Moon, China intends to send its first crew to Mars and set up a base for regular crewed missions in 2033, 2035, 2037, and 2041.
Visions of humans on the Moon once more has sparked a renaissance for the space race of the 1960s.
While China has replaced the Soviet Union in this iteration, it is once again the US going toe-to-toe with whichever global superpower is brazen enough for the challenge.
The pair are already locked into an Earth-bound tech war, with fist-shaking over computer chips, AI and TikTok, which has somehow erupted into a race for the stars.
Nasa boss Bill Nelson hasn't shied away from calling it a "race", either.
Under President Xi Jinping, China spent roughly $14billion (11.2billion) on its ambitious space programme in 2023, according to Statista.
The US space agency has dominated the industry so far, though has only recently swallowed the bitter pill of scrapping the Viper Moon mission after $450million had already been spent, citing spiralling costs and delays.
Nasa’s own Mars Sample Return has also been subject to pushbacks, as the mission timeline falls back into the 2040s from its original 2028 launch date.
China’s knack for building things fast, and well, could tip the scales – effects of which we might be seeing in real-time, as the country looks set to beat Nasa to Mars.
Though I have no doubt that date will be revised at some point in the future.
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