Forget Russia, China, America and all those other old-school, state-having, government-run groups sending folks into the sky. There's a new space race in town, it's corporate and it's heating up.
On Tuesday, Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos—multibillionaire and all-round chillaxed, super-easygoing boss (or not)—invited journalists into the headquarters of his mysterious rocket company, Blue Origin. It was the first time Bezos had opened the doors to reporters since the company was founded in 2000 and he had quite the announcement to make.
He could be sending tourists into space within the next two years.
(Not for long, mind you—just a few minutes really. But still: Space!)
Blue Origin has been gearing up for the move for a while now. Its New Shepard spacecraft—which made a successful return trip into the outskirts of space over the winter—is set to launch again soon. "Depending on how well the testing goes," the a New York Times report notes, "paying tourists, six at a time, might start making short trips, experiencing a few minutes of weightlessness as soon as 2018, he [Bezos] said."
It's a big fat gauntlet thrown at the feet of fellow billionaire-who-wants-to-do-space-stuff Elon Musk, whose SpaceX has been the more prominent rocket company aiming for space tourism. SpaceX has attempted launching its Falcon X rocket into space many times but only managed one successful landing.
Who will be first to the final frontier? And who will be brave-slash-filthy-rich-enough to file into one of their rockets and join them for a vacation?
It certainly won't be us. We're happy watching this rivalry play out from Earth.