Jun 8, 2021
Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, and the Modern Day Space Race
The two Richest Men in the world are competing for a much bigger prize than getting into Space, their competing for the future.
Opinion By: Mo Gerstley
Earlier this week, Amazon C.E.O and the Worlds second Richest man, made news for his announcement, that he will be in fact going to Space on the 20th of July, 2021. This comes just after the worlds wealthiest man, Elon Musk who heads the top privatized Space Network in the nation, Space X, was chosen by NASA to build a craft intended to transport U.S. astronauts to the lunar surface, a decision later criticized by Jeff Bezos, who leads the competing Space Research company, Blue Origins. So why are the two most profitable billionaires in the world spending so much money, time, and effort on crafting Space Research programs? There must be a significant reason why. There is, aside from valuable metals, rare objects and precious materials that can be used for medical research, a major benefit to Space Research and exploration, for Space is in fact the future of infrastructure, the economy, and more. Space is the future of everything. According to both Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, NASA experts, and essentially any researcher for these matters, colonization of mars is far closer to a reality than expected. Real Estate moguls are all voicing their excitement for a potential new market outside of our atmosphere, and it is not beyond the relm of our current technology to do it, and Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, Richard Branson, and the rest of the millionaires and billionaires contributing to these missions all know it. Launching Space missions in an attempt to grow your influence in Scientific Research regarding space, is the future, and that’s whats making the worlds wealthiest people so inclined to grow their Space Networks. But Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk themselves seem to be in their own competition in these matters, and there is a dramatic backstory to this. In 2004, Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk were great friends, and were both deeply looking forward to the potential privatization of the Space Industry, but while having dinner together, Musk said something that would make the two stark enemies in the space relm forever, and start what what we call today ‘‘the 21st century space race.’’ Musk told Bezos that the brand he was in the midst of building ‘‘Space X’’ will be the ones to change the world forever, and that despite both being wealthy, they will be forgotten. He allegedly started discussing Howard Hughes. Hughes was an American Business man, who at the time of the moon landing was the richest man on the planet, and yet, he is forgotten, not to be remembered. Musk said that in the future generation, in two hundred years when mars will be colonized and men woman and children all live in Space, he wants to be the man attributed with the accomplishment of creating this new human atmosphere. He said that if every person remembers Neil Armstrong for walking on the moon, how fondly will they remember the man who created a world on mars. And finally, at the climax of the dinner, Musk told Bezos that even his to be multi-million dollar company ‘‘Tesla’’ is nothing compared to the legacy ‘‘Space X’’ will create for him, and that’s when rumors speculate, Bezos developed his plan to make Blue Origin the biggest private Space Network on the planet, and start a Blue Origin Mars Colonization project, of their own. Since then, the two have been fighting over the course of their careers over new Space developments. On the 9th of May 2019, when Jeff Bezos unveiled Blue Origins ‘‘Blue Moon’’ space craft, Musk poked fun at its design on Twitter, implying that the craft looked like genitalia. This viral tweet was emblematic of the relationship that Bezos and Elon Musk had, while they are reportedly good friends, they are ready to fight to death, to be the ones who start a new world on Mars, and have the greatest legacy of any man in modern history. Jeff Bezos going to Space, is just one step closer the two are taking, in a to be, long battle for the future of Space.
