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<\/p>\nrichard branson
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Space race heats up: Branson heading into orbit before Bezos
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Branson mum on when he\u2019ll launch to space on Virgin Galactic
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Whose rocket is bigger? How Musk, Branson and Bezos’ space stuff stacks up
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Space race: Inside the ego-fueled competition of Bezos, Musk and Branson
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Virgin Galactic founder Sir Richard Branson has insisted the billionaire space race is not a “competition” — just a day after he announced he would beat Amazon founder Jeff Bezos to blast off.<\/p>\n
“I know that it’s been painted as a race, honestly I don’t think either of us see it that way,” Branson said Friday on Good Morning America.<\/p>\n
Virgin Galactic announced Thursday that its next spaceflight test on July 11 will carry Branson himself — leapfrogging Bezos, the world’s richest man, by nine days.<\/p>\n
Bezos, who has a net worth of almost $200 billion, announced last month that he and his brother will be on Blue Origin’s first crewed flight to space on July 20. <\/p>\n
But on Friday, Branson, who has a net worth of over $7.5 billion, sought to downplay the conspicuous timing of the announcements as the two billionaires jostle to become the first industry titan to fly to space. <\/p>\n
“We’re both doing something pretty different — the people that go up with us are going up in a spaceship — they launch from a beautiful space port in New Mexico and then Jeff has a different approach,” Branson said. <\/p>\n
“So we’re not really in direct competition. I have enormous respect for what he’s doing and I know he has enormous respect for what our wonderful team are doing as well.”<\/p>\n
Still, after Virgin Galactic’s announcement, Bezos’ Blue Origin couldn’t keep from taking a shot at its rival. <\/p>\n
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In a statement, Blue Origin CEO Bob Smith emphasized that his company\u2019s rocket travels slightly higher than Virgin Galactic\u2019s. <\/p>\n
Blue Origin’s New Shepard spacecraft passes a few kilometers above the internationally-recognized boundary of space, the so-called Karman Line, which stands at an altitude of 100 kilometers above Earth’s mean sea level.<\/p>\n
Virgin Galactic’s VSS Unity spacecraft, on the other hand, launches its homeport in New Mexico \u2014 dubbed Spaceport America \u2014 with the help of a carrier craft, before igniting its rocket and accelerating to three times the speed of sound. <\/p>\n
It reaches an altitude of about 80 kilometers, where it spends a few minutes in microgravity and gives passengers a chance to enjoy the view.<\/p>\n
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\u201cWe wish him a great and safe flight, but they\u2019re not flying above the Karman line and it\u2019s a very different experience,\u201d Smith, of Blue Origin, told CNBC.<\/p>\n
By US standards, though, both crafts make it to space. The US Air Force and the Federal Aviation Administration put the boundary of space lower, at an altitude of about 50 miles.<\/p>\n
Shares of Virgin Galactic spiked about 25 percent in afterhours trading after the company announced Branson’s flight, but the stock gave up most of those gains Friday.<\/p>\n