During the Cold War the Space Race was a competition between the United States and the Soviet Union where each country tried to outdo the other by being the first to launch unmanned satellites, send humans into space, and eventually land humans on the moon.

The Goddard vertical landing space vehicle

It now appears that the Space Race of the 21st Century is going to between billionaires, Jeff Bezos (of Amazon fame) and Sir Richard Branson (of Virgin fame), both of whom are trying to bring space travel to the masses (well, at least to those with money).

While Branson’s Virgin Galactic is already allowing space tourists to book $200,000 tickets for sub-orbital flights scheduled for 2009 on a Spaceshipone-design space plane, Bezos’s company Blue Origin has just unveiled pictures of the Goddard, a vertical-landing vehicle designed to take a small number of astronauts on a sub-orbital journey into space.

The Goddard was launched and landed on the morning of November 13, 2006 – there’s a video of the launch at the Blue Origin web site. The Goddard is the first development vehicle in the Blue Origin’s New Shepard spacecraft development program. Bezos said the launch was both useful and fun. Friends and family came to watch and support the development team.

“We’re working, patiently and step-by-step, to lower the cost of space flight so that many people can afford to go and so that we humans can better continue exploring the solar system,” said Bezos. 

“Accomplishing this mission will take a long time, and we’re working on it methodically. We believe in incremental improvement and in keeping investments at a pace that’s sustainable. Slow and steady is the way to achieve results, and we do not kid ourselves into thinking this will get easier as we go along. Smaller, more frequent steps drive a faster rate of learning, help us maintain focus, and give each of us an opportunity to see our latest work fly sooner.”

Blue Origin is presently hiring, and is looking for experienced propulsion engineers and turbomachinery engineers, as well as a senior leader to head its turbopump group.

“Folks with turbopump or propulsion experience on large, modern, cryogenic engines such as the RS-68 are of particular interest,” said Bezos.

Beyond the excitement of the launch of a new space vehicle, the emergence of the 21st Century Space Race is interesting for a number of reasons.

Space travel technology is now well and truly being driven by private enterprise, rather than just governments. I suspect that private enterprise will be much more efficient and effective at developing low-cost technologically-savvy solutions, which will mean that we’ll see a lot more progress in space travel technology in the next twenty five years than we have seen in the past twenty five years.

Both Blue Origin and Virgin Galactic are backed by well-known billionaires. Everyday space travel has been the dream of scifi aficionados for years, and so it’s probably no surprise that both Branson and Bezos have turned their attention to this new frontier. Of course, if they achieve their goal of providing safe space tourism at a price that is within the reach of even just the wealthier members of Western countries, they’ll not only make history, but they’ll also increase their already vast fortunes substantially. 

It’s also worth noting that while Bezos and Branson have turned their attention to the heavens, THAT other well-known billionaire, Bill Gates, has turned his attention to improving the conditions of people in the Third World by improving health and learning though the Gates Foundation. It’s just interesting to see how different billionaires choose to spend their time and money.

Blue Origin’s motto is Gradatim Ferociter, which is Latin for step by step, courageously. A very wise approach, considering that history and people’s lives are at stake. 

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Entry was posted on Saturday, January 6th, 2007 at 3:47 am under Science and technology, Technology.

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