Remember a short time ago when the space race between Richard Branson and Elon Musk was treated a trivial pursuits by the uber-rich with too much time on their hands ?
Well maybe not . The value of Musk's Space X shot up to $100 billion today....up 33% from February . It is now the 2nd most valuable private company in the world .
Is this greedy capitalist pocketing his riches ?
Nah this funding is the result of massive space projects the company is leading .
One is called Starlink . The goal of Starlink will be to launch thousands of interconnected satellites with the purpose of spreading high speed internet around the globe . More than 1700 sats so far have been launched servicing over 100,000 net users in 14 countries . Service costs $99 /month
Elon Musk: US Nationwide Starlink Rollout Is Coming This Month | PCMag
The other big project is Starship .Starship is a next generation rocket that the company has invested a fortune in to date . It is designed to be a heavy lift rocket for missions to the Moon and Mars . The rocket is at a point where it has flown short term flights . The next step is to reach orbit. SpaceX is awaiting regulatory approval for this step.
FAA releases draft environmental review of SpaceX's Starship | Space
Let's face facts . Private space is the future . NASA is going to retire ISS by the end of the decade and is expecting to replace it with something a private company designs and launches . It will save the taxpayers $1billion annually . The main goals of private space companies is to reduce the cost of access to space and making space accessible to people who are not specially trained astronauts.
So maybe it will be the Musk ,Branson, Bezos billionaires who will be taking the joy rides . But it will not be long before space tourism will be an option for the well travelled tourists . This in turn will spur more investment in areas like launch, communications and exploration ,a new chapter in the history of space .