– Can not get it up – VG

For 20 years, Bezos and Musk, two of the richest people on the planet, have been scrambling to explore space.

While Elon Musk’s SpaceX won the race to be the first to launch a rocket into orbit as early as 2008, Jeff Bezos looks set to beat Musk on the run-up side in another category.

On Tuesday, the outgoing Amazon boss himself will go to space.

He travels there with his little brother Mark Bezos, just days after the British billionaire Richard Branson carried out a similar journey.

Also on the trip are the 82-year-old female space pioneer Wally Funk, and the 18-year-old Dutch physics student Oliver Daemen. They will be the oldest and youngest ever to visit space, respectively.

The trip will last for eleven minutes, and for four minutes the passengers will be high enough that it is considered to be in space.

The launch will take place in the desert in Texas, at 15.00 Norwegian time on Tuesday. It is 52 years since the moon landing in 1969.

– Can ‘t get it up

But even if Jeff Bezos gets into space before arch-rival Elon Musk, his company Blue Origin is still far behind SpaceX.

While SpaceX managed to launch a rocket into orbit as early as six years after the company was founded, Blue Origin has still not achieved the same. Last year SpaceX also sent astronauts to the International Space Station.

And Musk has been loud in his goal of sending people to the moon and to Mars.

– Engineers work better when they are pushed to the limit to do great things in a very short time with few resources. I mean that’s when you put in good work. Not when you’re 20, SpaceX CEO Gwynne Shotwell said during a conference last year.

It was intended as a stab at Blue Origin, which somewhat pompously in Latin has the motto Gradatim Ferociter – “Gradually, violently”. The company’s mascot is a turtle, who is supposed to win the race against the hare.

But right now the hare – Elon Musk – is better off on the trail, at least if one is to believe his own Twitter account.

– He does not get it up (in orbit). Lol, Musk wrote on Twitter in April. The announcement was a comment on the news that Bezos was complaining about NASA’s decision to award SpaceX a contract to bring NASA astronauts to the moon.

The contract was for almost three billion US dollars, or 26 billion kroner.

Recently, Bezos has invested huge sums in Blue Origin. He has stepped down as head of Amazon, reportedly with the intention of spending more time on the space project. And his company has cut employees from SpaceX, by offering double pay.

– It is unnecessary, and a bit rude, Elon Musk has said about the practice.

Third billionaire in the dance

Arch-rival Elon Musk has even booked a flight with Virgin Atlantic – the company owned by billionaire Richard Branson, who took him into space last week. The day he was to fly, Branson tweeted a picture of himself and Musk.

– A big day ahead of us. Great to start the morning with a friend. Feeling good, feeling eager, feeling ready, Branson wrote.

He also thanked Musk for the support he has shown. Blue Origin, on the other hand, has described Virgin Galactic in more negative terms.

– From the start, the New Shepard rocket was designed to fly over the Kármán line, so none of our astronauts will have a footnote by their name. For 96 percent of the world’s population, space starts 100 kilometers up, at this limit, the company writes on Twitter.

Attached is a picture comparing the vessels Virgin Galactic and Blue Origin use. In the listing, it seems implicit that Blue Origin is far more prestigious.

Lifelong dream

For Bezos, the dream of space has been lifelong.

When he was appointed to give a farewell speech at the high school graduation ceremony in 1982, he told the Miami Herald newspaper that he wanted to build hotels, amusement parks and colonies for two to three million in space.

“The idea is to take care of the earth,” he told the newspaper, according to the Washington Post. The people were to be evacuated, and the earth was to become a park.

Bezos first founded Blue Origin in the year 2000, after watching the space movie «October Sky». He had seen the film with a friend, and told about how he had always wanted to start a space company.

– Why do not you do it now? asked the friend. Since the company was founded in 2000, Bezos has worked one day a week in Blue Origin, while Amazon has grown into a huge multinational company.

He has become the world’s richest man, taken over e – commerce in large parts of the world, and set up his own power service. Now it’s time for a first visit to space.

“They are ready to experience the biggest flight of their lives,” Ariane Cornell of Blue Origin said of the crew in Tuesday’s spaceflight, according to Reuters.

“We do not currently have any unresolved issues, and the New Shepard rocket is ready to fly,” said air traffic controller Steve Lanius. There is thus little that can cancel Bezos’ dream flight.

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