What is it about the universe that attracts the world's top billionaires?

Both Musk and Bezos have long-term visions for the space industry. Photo: Business Insider .

On November 3, Vingroup Chairman Pham Nhat Vuong established the aerospace company VinSpace and contributed 71% of capital to this enterprise.

Many billionaires around the world also see aerospace as a big technological and business opportunity, not just a regular tourist trip. From the private market with near commercial potential, the world's richest people also see this as the future of humanity.

The vision of billionaires

Both Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos believe that space travel is a huge step forward in history, towards living beyond Earth. Musk's view is more redemptive and often causes controversy in the community.

He believed that humans needed to live in more places outside of Earth to avoid the risk of extinction and that NASA and the government were doing this too slowly and expensively. Therefore, after selling two old companies, Musk decided to found a private space company SpaceX in 2002, with the initial goal of flying into space more often.

The company has since developed reusable rockets (Falcon 9, Starship), which have reduced launch costs by a factor of ten. Programs like the Starlink global internet satellite network, and the Crew Dragon spacecraft and human spaceflight to the International Space Station have made great strides.

By 2025, Starlink will cover 70 countries around the world, which is the company's main source of revenue and funds other projects. Contracts for transporting people from NASA, the government, and the US Department of Defense also bring significant profits to the company.

Many billionaires around the world have invested in spacecraft. Photo: Brownstone Research .

Sharing the same view, Jeff Bezos, Chairman of Amazon, founded the space company Blue Origin in 2000 to bring millions of people to live and work in space. He believes that humanity needs to bring heavy industry, energy production and mining into space to help the Earth become green and clean again.

Unlike Musk, who wants to get to Mars quickly, however, Bezos believes that it is impossible to build a sustainable space civilization without basic infrastructure. Therefore, his company also focuses on reusable rockets such as New Shepard to take people or cargo to the edge of space, or New Glenn heavy-lift, aiming for Earth orbit or higher.

Blue Origin is also targeting projects like lunar landings, near-space mining, “in-space” platforms, and commercial launch services. The approach is like building the space infrastructure first, so that other businesses can build on top of it.

Space as a premium service experience

In contrast to the above approach, some billionaires involved in the space industry want to commercialize and exploit immediately. Among them, two projects with great potential, Virgin Galactic and Bigelow Aerospace, stand out, but have not reaped long-term results.

British businessman Richard Branson founded Virgin Galactic in 2004. He now has more than 40 companies operating in fields such as music, travel, telecommunications, and is also famous for his business vision combined with experiences, from entertainment to space tourism.

The company's goal is to develop a line of aerospace vehicles for private customers and scientific experiments, thereby expanding the scope of the industry. Virgin Galactic is the first space tourism company to go public through a SPAC merger and stock transaction.

Richard Branson flew into space before Jeff Bezos. Photo: Virgin Galactic.

In November 2021, Branson took part in a flight of VSS Unity, Virgin Galactic's spacecraft that reached an altitude of 86 km. The company had previously sold advance tickets to customers for $250,000 per ticket.

However, Branson has announced that he will not be making any major capital investments as he no longer has the same funding as before Covid-19. The company has announced that it will suspend commercial travel for about 18 months to focus on developing the new Delta model.

Also about the space experience, Robert Bigelow, the American billionaire who founded the Budget Suites of America hotel chain, has the ambition to build the first space hotel. He used most of his accumulated real estate assets to invest in space research and technology, founding Bigelow Aerospace.

The company had announced plans to build the first private space station, where astronauts, researchers, or tourists could live, work, or vacation. The plan attracted interest from NASA and international partners, but due to costs and slow progress, Bigelow Aerospace halted operations in 2020 after the Covid-19 pandemic.

Source: https://znews.vn/vu-tru-co-gi-ma-hap-dan-nhung-ty-phu-hang-dau-the-gioi-post1600764.html