Wednesday, November 25, 2015

Jeff Bezos vs. Elon Musk: A Thrilling, New Space Race - Bloomberg Business

Also see Musk Squares Off With Bezos in Space Billionaires' Twitter Feud

"Blue Origin’s feat comes with several caveats. First off, this was just a test run. Blue Origin has yet to complete a single rocket launch for a paying customer. The New Shepard vehicle is also aimed more at space tourism, to take people to the edge of space, where they can hang out weightlessly for a few minutes before returning to earth. The engineering expertise required to send a rocket high enough to place a satellite into orbit or take supplies to the International Space Station is much more demanding. So, too, are the physics behind landing such a rocket on earth.
For its part, SpaceX has successfully landed its much larger rockets back on a test pad after brief flights. It has also come very close on a couple of occasions to landing its rocket on a barge floating in the ocean after sending commercial payloads into space. But SpaceX failed to execute a successful landing on a real flight before Blue Origin achieved its milestone."
Jeff Bezos vs. Elon Musk: A Thrilling, New Space Race - Bloomberg Business

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