Soaring Musk vs Struggling Bezos... Diverging Fortunes in Billionaire Space Race [Science Insights]

Explosion Accident of Bezos' Blue Origin 'New Shepard Rocket' on the 12th
Elon Musk's SpaceX Thrives with Falcon 9 and Starlink

Photo by Yonhap News

[Asia Economy Reporter Kim Bong-su] Amazon's 'Jeff Bezos' vs Tesla's 'Elon Musk'. The world's richest individuals are experiencing mixed fortunes in the race to pioneer space exploration. Musk is thriving with SpaceX, but his rival Bezos is struggling, repeatedly failing in the development of launch vehicles, a core means of space development.

According to Space.com on the 13th, Bezos's space startup Blue Origin launched its New Shepard launch vehicle on the 12th (local time) in Texas, USA, for a low Earth orbit scientific experiment mission, but the first stage malfunctioned and the mission failed. About one minute after launch, an anomaly occurred in the first stage, which then fell and was destroyed, while the unmanned capsule safely landed thanks to its parachute deployment.

This is not the first time Blue Origin's New Shepard launch vehicle has caused trouble. During its first launch in April 2015, although ignition, liftoff, and reaching the target altitude were all successful, the vehicle failed to land and crashed. Since then, the New Shepard rocket appeared to have resolved its issues by successfully completing 21 consecutive flights, including six suborbital transports for space tourists. Experts are paying close attention to how this recent failure might negatively impact Blue Origin's space tourism. However, the launch vehicle that crashed this time was unmanned; a different launch vehicle is used when carrying capsules for space tourism.

The Blue Origin New Shepard rocket launched on the 12th exploded within one minute.

Bezos founded Blue Origin in 2000, taking an early step into space development ahead of Musk, who established SpaceX in 2002. However, he has been repeatedly defeated in the rocket development technology competition. A representative example is his loss to SpaceX in NASA's lunar lander production bid in April last year. Additionally, SpaceX has already launched thousands of small satellites to commercialize the Starlink space internet service. Notably, Musk gained global recognition by providing thousands of space internet terminals to Ukraine immediately after the Russia-Ukraine war began in February, enabling prolonged resistance. In contrast, Blue Origin's Kuiper project has yet to get off the ground. SpaceX succeeded in developing the Falcon 9, which is expected to be reusable over 100 times, reducing launch costs to around $2,000 per kilogram and sweeping the commercial launch vehicle market. In May last year, after five attempts, the test launch of the massive Starship rocket capable of Mars exploration succeeded, earning recognition for its potential. Musk and Bezos have clashed over whether to explore Mars and have also been at odds over NASA's launch pad leasing and reusable technology patents, confronting each other on various fronts.