Musk’s SpaceX vs. Bezos’s Blue Origin: The Billionaire Space Race

In the first week of 2021, founder and CEO of Tesla and SpaceX Elon Musk surpassed Amazon founder Jeff Bezos as the richest man in the world at a net worth of $185 billion. Since then, the top spot has fluctuated between the two.

Coincidentally enough, Bezos abruptly stepped down as CEO of Amazon on February 2. In a letter to Amazon employees, Bezos stated that as a result of his decision, “[I will] have the time and energy I need to focus on […] my other passions.” Similar to Musk, Bezos has his own space company, Blue Origin. It seems as if Bezos, after seeing his opponent’s success, wishes to challenge Musk’s ability by turning his attention to Blue Origin. Assessing each company’s goals in the upcoming years shows that the two billionaires are ready to engage in a space race.

Though it is not discussed as much as SpaceX, Blue Origin has its own stark ambitions. Bezos founded Blue Origin in 2000, two years before Musk founded SpaceX. Though not many people have heard about it, Blue Origin has signed several contracts with NASA allowing them new launch permits. Having stepped down from Amazon, Bezos now has the time to focus on launching new rockets into space.

As a student, Bezos dreamed of building huge space colonies and specifically had an interest in physicist Gerard O'Neill’s space colony concepts. In O’Neill’s concepts, colonies were made out of materials almost exclusively found in space. The cylindrical space colonies would rotate to create the feeling of gravity and Earth-like conditions. In Bezos’s high school valedictorian speech, the Miami Herald recapped, “[Bezos] wants to build space hotels, amusement parks, yachts, and colonies for two or three million people orbiting around the earth […] The whole idea is to preserve the earth […] the final objective is to get all people off the earth and see it turned into a huge national park.” With this desire in mind, Bezos founded Blue Origin and sought to reduce the cost of space travel.

Blue Origin is currently working on a rocket set to debut in 2021 called New Glenn that will have reusable boosters to lower the cost of launches. The boosters, which help propel a spacecraft into space, would ideally return to Earth for reuse. Blue Origin is also planning to create a rocket called New Armstrong that would be completely reusable, meaning the entire rocket system could be salvaged and used again. It has been speculated that the New Armstrong rocket will be designed for deep space travel, such as to the Moon or even Mars. For now, Blue Origin’s main focus is a fully reusable rocket system named New Shepard, which has successfully landed on the ground multiple times. However, unlike the proposed New Armstrong, New Shepard is only designed for suborbital flight and, therefore, does not have the power to achieve orbit around Earth. Additionally, Blue Origin plans to help develop a lunar lander for NASA’s upcoming Artemis mission that aims to get humans back on the moon by 2024.

Considering how much the company still has to accomplish, it is no wonder that Bezos adjusted his devotion. It is clear that Bezos has not put much effort into Blue Origin, considering the company’s few launches thus far. In the last two years, SpaceX had 21 launches and became the first private company to successfully launch a rocket into space, while Blue Origin had far fewer launches, most of which were suborbital flights. SpaceX had contracts with NASA far before Blue Origin did, such as the manned Dragon mission to the International Space Station (ISS) in the summer of 2020.

As for their private ventures, SpaceX developed the first reused rocket, called Falcon 9, that had reusable boosters, saving millions of dollars per launch. Falcon Heavy, which consists of three Falcon 9 cores, became the most powerful rocket in the world and could carry more than twice the amount of the next biggest rocket. In fact, a Falcon Heavy rocket equipped with previously used boosters once sent a Tesla Roadster heading towards Mars. After the car was on its way, the boosters safely landed back on Earth, proving Falcon Heavy’s ability to send heavy payloads. Additionally, the company is working to create a fully reusable rocket—Starship SN9—and fuel will be the only significant cost. Unfortunately, in the past couple of months, two test launches ended in explosions upon landing, inciting criticism that the company is moving too fast.

Musk also has large aspirations. Unlike Bezos, Musk wants to establish a self-sustaining city on Mars, stating, "When you'd land [on Mars], you hydrate the [dry nutrient] gel [with seeds] and you have a little greenhouse on Mars." SpaceX’s current plan for a Mars mission is to launch a manned Starship into orbit. A few “tanker” Starships would also launch and meet the manned Starship in orbit to refill its fuel tanks. Afterward, the tankers would return to Earth as the manned Starship begins its voyage to Mars. Musk hopes that the Starship will carry at most 100 people at a time, compared to the current four that are sent to the ISS at a time. Starship could also be used for a manned mission to the Moon in 2023 to prove its ability to make deep space trips. Musk also mentioned that, since the Starship is reusable, the round-trip ticket could cost around $100,000 to $500,000, allowing average citizens to pack their bags and move to Mars. The company expects to start creating a city on Mars in the 2050s and Musk even hopes to terraform Mars using greenhouse gases in the 2100s to make it more Earth-like.

Both billionaires share the same wish: to make space travel cheaper and more accessible to the general public—but in different ways. Both companies have focused on creating reusable rockets that will drastically lower the cost of each launch, as NASA currently spends an average of $152 million per launch because a new rocket has to be assembled each time. Soon, we will all live in a reality where riding rockets to space is just as common as riding planes, and we’ll have companies like SpaceX and Blue Origin to thank for our progress. The ongoing battle between the two is a tight one. Perhaps the competition, resembling a space race, will encourage companies alike to seek new ideas for the greater of humankind. Only time will tell.