Billionaire Space Race reaches new heights

Two entrepreneurs went on trips to the edge of space this month. Richard Branson of the Virgin Group and Jeff Bezos of Amazon both boarded their own spacecraft before blasting off the edge of space.

Branson’s Virgin Galactic rocket-propelled plane took him to a height of 80km, just 20km short of the theoretical Kármán line, often considered the start of space. Bezos reached 107km on his New Shepard rocket, briefly entering suborbital space before heading back to Earth.

Both men are often grouped with SpaceX owner Elon Musk, who has achieved more technical and commercial success in space, ferrying cargo and astronauts 400km up to the International Space Station, but has yet to visit space himself.

ARTICLES
Environmental

Cleaning the seas with mussels

© image courtesy of Montgomery Groundbreaking research suggests that one of the humblest creatures in the ocean, the blue mussel, could be the secret to

EPISODES