Billionaires among themselves: the race for space flights
The competition for the commercial exploitation of the tourist potential of space trips is hard to beat in terms of excitement.
Richard Branson of Great Britain and Jeff Bezos of the United States are engaged in a relentless competition to conquer space with commercial flights for private individuals. Since both entrepreneurs own extremely successful, globally active corporations, they can invest high amounts in the millions in the development of suitable space vehicles.
Mission Future - Branson's Path to Space
Branson is an outspoken visionary who single-mindedly implements innovative projects. He has already demonstrated this with his commitment to climate protection and endangered species. Known for his assertiveness, the Briton also has a passion for high speeds. With his own racing team, Virgin Racing, he has taken part in several Formula 1 world championships. Branson's penchant for aircraft was evident, among other things, in his numerous record-breaking flights in hot-air balloons. He combined his two preferences in his company Virgin Galactic. In December 2009, he unveiled SpaceShipTwo - a small spacecraft designed to enable short trips into space by private individuals.
SpaceShipTwo - ambitious or doomed to failure?
Since 2012, the company, which was previously a joint venture with the Scales Composites Group, has been solely owned by Virgin Galactic. The SpaceShipTwo is a small space plane. Branson had originally planned to use it to make sub-Earth orbit flights in space starting in 2015. He intended to later offer them commercially as space excursions for an affluent clientele. So far, however, the British billionaire has not been able to put this plan into practice: In the fall of 2014, the prototype VSSEnterprise crashed spectacularly, costing the life of one of the two pilots and setting the planning back by years. Two years later, the next failure occurred: the successor model crashed due to technical problems with the hybrid propulsion system, again killing a pilot. Whether SpaceShipTwo will ever become a commercial success is written in the stars after these two tragedies. To be sure, hundreds of wealthy individuals, including prominent artists such as Justin Bieber and Leonardo DiCaprio, have already reserved tickets. In the process, a large down payment on the anticipated purchase price of a quarter of a million U.S. dollars was due. But without a safely functioning spacecraft, there will be no revenue at all. Financing the construction of a new SpaceShipTwo could put the future of the entire Virgin Group at risk. You should consider this while trading in exness thailand. Since Branson is known as a risk-taker, but also as a successful entrepreneur, renewed financing through the Virgin Group is unlikely for the time being.