The Modern Space Race
The final frontier, space, is no longer in the hands of the world governments, but rather perhaps in the hands of private corporations. Blue Origins, an aerospace company funded by Jeff Bezos, the founder of Amazon, is focused on creating new opportunities for the modern man. In other words, they want to send people into space. However, they are challenged by an equally big and equally impressive cooperation, SpaceX. SpaceX is funded and lead by Elon Musk, the billionaire CEO of Tesla, who has a goal of retiring on Mars. On November 22, Blue Origins was able to launch a booster rocket, named the New Shepard. It ascended to 100 kilometers and was able to land itself vertically, making it the first rocket to do so. Exactly one month later, SpaceX responded with a bang, launching their booster rocket, the Falcon 9, sixty two miles up. It then released eleven satellites before coming back down to earth, landing safely. "Welcome back, baby!" Elon Musk tweeted. In 2016, Blue Origin and SpaceX will battle it out to be the first to successfully re-launch a used booster rocket. However, it looks as if Blue Origins will be first to accomplish this, as Musk has stated that he wants to keep his booster in a museum. In the far future, both SpaceX and Blue Origin look to land civilians on Mars, and they are looking for volunteers now. Maybe, instead of delivering packages to your door, Amazon will deliver you to the Red Planet.
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