These #3 Billionaires Will Make Your Space Travel a Reality Soon Billionaires like Elon Musk, Richard Branson and Jeff Bezos are leading the race to space with their specially designed programmes
By Nidhi Singh
Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.
You're reading Entrepreneur India, an international franchise of Entrepreneur Media.
Travelling to space is a dream dreamt by youngsters for ages, but none could have the opportunity to live the "dream-come-true' moment. With time man has been able to mould technology as per his needs and has strived to travel to the space, riding on technology.
Now, entrepreneurs have started cashing in on people's fascination with space travel and are trying to build sustainable business model in sector.
Billionaires like Elon Musk, Richard Branson and Jeff Bezos are leading the race to space with their specially designed programmes, which promise to make the voyage affordable for commoners.
Technology has actually helped a lot in bringing down the prices.
Entrepreneur India has listed three billionaires, who are making space exploration less expensive.
Mars Mission
SpaceX CEO Elon Musk announced that SpaceX would start sending people to Mars by 2024 at the International Astronautical Congress, 2017.The billionaire entrepreneur will inaugurate his much-hyped Mars project in 2022 by sending two cargo spaceships to install power, mining and life support systems that will support his future missions.
The company has designed a rocket named BFR (Big F*cking Rocket) to serve multiple purposes. It will fly people from one corner of the earth to the other in less than an hour. Again, it will be used to transport satellites to orbit, crew and cargo to the International Space Station and will be able to conduct successful missions to moon and Mars.
With this rocket in operation, travel time to major cities of the world will come down to half-an-hour.
Space Flights
Virgin Group Founder Richard Branson plans to send passengers to space by end of 2018 and his space-flight company Virgin Galactic is working hard on this. The company had originally planned to start commercial passenger space flights by sending 500 people in 2014. However, the attempt was unsuccessful following SpaceShipTwo's crash in California killing one of the co-pilots. The plane had split into pieces and fell in California's Mojave Desert.
Branson hopes the Virgin Galactic space programme will be ready by 2018 and plans to launch more test flights into space by the end of this year.
Space Tourism
Jeff Bezos's private spaceflight company Blue Origin offers space tourism services. The company is developing technologies that will lower the costs dramatically, so that people can afford space travel. It is making foolproof arrangements to win people's trust and reliability.
Bezos has linked "barnstormers', once a popular mode of entertainment in which highly trained pilots would pull an extraordinary stunt with his/her aircraft, with space travel where rocket launches will promote space tourism through entertainment.
Blue Origin was founded in 2000 in Kent, Washington, and began developing rocket propulsion systems and launch vehicles. Since the launch, the company was very secretive about its plans and emerged from "its self-imposed silence only" after 2015. In September last year, Blue Origin announced its plans to build New Glenn, it's orbital launch vehicle that will carry people to low-Earth orbit destinations and beyond.