Musk, Bezos, Branson launch into new lap of billionaire space race

Just days after Elon Musk sat with Fox News' Tucker Carlson for an exclusive, wide-ranging interview, his spacecraft company, SpaceX, launched the world's largest rocket earlier this morning. But the billionaire hasn't been the only one quietly preparing for liftoff.

Fellow business venture gurus and billionaires Jeff Bezos and Richard Branson have also taken a seat in the private space exploration sector in hopes of making history and turning their long-held dreams into a reality.

But which billionaire is the standout in this new-aged race to space?

As explored in the new Fox Nation special, ‘Billionaire Space Race,’ Amazon founder Bezos was the initial leader in the race to space. Inspired by his Princeton University physics Professor Gerard O’Neill’s inquiry into long-term space travel, Bezos founded his space exploration company "Blue Origin" in 2000.

"Gradatim ferociter" serves as the space company's motto, meaning "step by step, ferociously," to symbolize the gradual race to space.

"I want Blue Origin to be a thriving enterprise and to help open the gateway to this new generation of people who will have this dynamic entrepreneurial explosion in space," Bezos said. 

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However, as the special explores, Bezos' competition on the ground could hurt his space endeavors; both Bezos and rival Elon Musk both struck a fortune in Silicon Valley, as did their agile competition. 

"Bezos’ chief rival on Earth and in space is Elon Musk," Adjunct Curator for Space History at the Museum of Flight Geoff Nunn said in the new special, hosted by Fox News' Bill Hemmer.

"With SpaceX, Musk is looking far beyond earthly success," Hemmer said in the special.

In 2021, Musk surpassed Bezos as the wealthiest man in the world, thanks to his successful electric car company, Tesla. But, having a passion for spacecrafts, that wasn't Musk's only transportation endeavor. In 2002, Musk sold PayPal to establish his space company SpaceX. 

And, like Bezos, Musk is thinking long-term for his space efforts. 

"My dream in space is that humanity becomes an evolved kind of species, that we have a self-sustaining civilization on Mars, and perhaps on the Moon and elsewhere in the solar system," Musk said.

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Though Bezos' SpaceX beat Musk's Blue Origin to a $2.9 billion contract to build the lunar lander for NASA's Artemis program in 2021, Blue Origin was awarded its first interplanetary NASA contract in February of this year - stiffening the competition between the billionaires.

But they aren't the only billionaires in this race.

Hailing from the United Kingdom, Richard Branson earned his first billion before Musk and Bezos made their first million. 

Branson’s versatility in expertise stems from his multinational conglomerate company Virgin Group, which ventures from music records to aviation. Most prominently, his success in the airline industry with Virgin Airlines enabled Branson to tap into space exploration, having founded Virgin Galactic in 2004.

"Achieving an era where space accessibility becomes a commercial and scientific norm, rather than an exception," Branson said, expressing his dreams of space exploration becoming a reality for everyone.

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Though Virgin Galactic does not appear to be working with NASA in the same capacities as SpaceX and Blue Origin, in 2021, it became the first company to successfully launch its founder into space, allowing Branson to beat Bezos and Musk alike. Virgin Galactic has been certified by the FAA (Federal Aviation Administration) to provide commercial spaceflight travel.

In Fox Nation's ‘Billionaire Space Race,' Hemmer noted a significant obstacle all three billionaires face is the expense and limited reuse of spacecrafts. In this neck-and-neck race to space, figuring out a solution to this obstacle could potentially change space travel - and its cost.

"These newer companies have to have a business model that actually makes financial sense. The root of that business model is not to throw away launch vehicles every time they use them, but instead, really reuse them, so that every launch makes the initial cost lower and lower," American Astronomer Derrick Pitts said in the special.

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