The space race 2.0 is heating up! A couple of months back both Virgin mobile owner Richard Branson and Amazon founder Jeff Bezos were along for the ride. As each of their space programs made their first voyages into space. Although in Branson’s case, it’s debatable whether he actually made it to space or not. The other company that had been surprisingly quiet over the summer while Bezos and Branson got all of the headlines had been Elon Musk‘s SpaceX. Not anymore though, and they’ve got some awesome pictures to prove they went to space!
The Mission
Last night at 8:02 p.m local time SpaceX’s Falcon 9 space shuttle launched from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida. The 4-person crew made up what the company is calling civilian or “amateur astronauts” isn’t just going on a quick trip to space. As was the case with the other two launches that we recently talked about. The mission is being dubbed Inspiration4. The objective of the mission is not really clear. The SpaceX site provides data on the three-day journey that the team is going to make. Boasting how high the shuttle is potentially going to reach. Whatever that is meant to accomplish is still a bit of a mystery.
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They Are Getting Some Cool Pics
In the old days, NASA went up into space to try and gather data for one thing or another. Wireless phones and Wi-Fi as well as satellite TV are some of the things that we got out of these first space trips. These days, it seems like it’s just a competition between billionaires to see which one can develop the best spacecraft. With this three-day journey, SpaceX certainly proves that they are potentially way ahead of their competition. They are also live-streamed the launch and certain parts of the journey. As well as bringing back some awesome pictures.
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Why Going Higher Matters
Does it really matter which spacecraft can go higher? There are a couple of arguments that we could make as to why it definitely matters. As we mentioned, SpaceX is boasting the fact that their space shuttle will go further out into space than the International Space Station, and the Hubble Telescope. Perhaps Wally Funk the 82-year-old man who traveled to space with Jeff Bezos explains the importance better than anyone. Quite frankly, you can’t really see anything special at the height that Bezos and Branson are reaching! Funk mentioned on his return to earth,
“We went right on up, and I saw darkness. I thought I was going to see the world, but we weren’t quite high enough,”
Elon Musk’s Goals Are Much More Ambitious
We are literally not rocket scientists here. However, it seems like SpaceX is not only leaps and bounds ahead of the competition they have more ambitious overall goals. We are not just talking about the community that Musk wants to build on Mars. He’s currently working hand in hand with NASA to build a shuttle that would allow NASA astronauts to return to the moon. While Branson and Bezos are essentially just content with offering ferry rides to space. Kind of like a massively expensive, overly dangerous, amusement park attraction!
