The race between Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos for control of space through their companies, SpaceX and Blue Origin, is getting tighter. But according to physicist Michio Kaku, the clear winner of this race is SpaceX.
Kaku made this comment in an interview with Fox Business some time ago. Kaku said SpaceX was far superior to Blue Origin and brought Musk the winner of the rivalry between the two billionaires.
"They (SpaceX) have circled the Earth several times, they went to the space station. In fact, their last launch even surpassed the Hubble Space Telescope; that's how far they went into space," said Kaku, as quoted by Interesting Engineering, Monday. (18/10/2021).
"In addition, Elon Musk sold tickets to go to the Moon, and the Japanese billionaire actually bought all the tickets for the first flight to the Moon."
Kaku's statement is true. SpaceX has several times launched payloads and manned missions to the international space station (ISS) using Falcon 9 rockets and Dragon capsules.
They recently launched the Inspiration4 mission, which consisted of four amateur astronauts. The three-day mission reached an altitude of 589 km, much higher than the positions of the ISS and Hubble in orbit.
On the other hand, Blue Origin has just launched two manned flights to sub-orbital altitude. Unlike SpaceX, which has already reached outer space, Blue Origin's flight only reaches an altitude of about 100 km, which is the outer limit of Earth's atmosphere.
On its last manned flight on October 13, Blue Origin launched four civilians, one of whom was actor William Shatner. In this flight, Shatner and his friends only spent about 3 minutes and 30 seconds in zero gravity before returning to Earth.
When compared to the Inspiration4 mission which lasted for three days in space, the Blue Origin mission certainly looks inferior to SpaceX.
"So it's no longer about flying for three minutes and coming back down. No, we're talking about the Moon now," said Kaku.
The competition between Musk and Bezos doesn't stop there. Both SpaceX and Blue Origin are currently vying for a NASA contract to build a lander that will take astronauts to the Moon by 2024.
In addition, the two richest people in the world also have a satellite internet business. Musk owns the satellite internet business Starlink, which is part of SpaceX, while Bezos owns Project Kuiper, developed by Amazon.
