Challenging Musk’s SpaceX, Amazon CEO plans to send passengers to space in April

SpaceX, a space company owned by Elon Musk, the modern Iron Man, is committed to developing launch vehicles to realize Musk’s space technology dream. It plans to use SpaceX starships to launch rockets in 2024. Humans go to Mars.

Jeff Bezos, the CEO of another technology giant Amazon and the former world’s richest man, is not to be outdone. His space company Blue Origin recently completed the launch of space tourism rocket thrusters and cabins. The 14th flight test mission "NS-14"

According to relevant reports, NS-14 completed the launch at 12:17 noon on the 14th, Eastern Time, using an 18-meter-high rocket to send the cabin to space. This is Blue Origin’s penultimate exercise before sending the first humans into space. Blue Origin currently plans to conduct its second flight test within six weeks, that is, at the end of February, and its first manned flight in early April, launching the space sightseeing mission "New Shepard" to send the first batch of passengers into outer space.

The goal of the space tourism mission New Shepard is to fly humans over the edge of space to an altitude of more than 340,000 feet. The cabin will stay in a gravity-free state for several minutes before returning to Earth. Passengers can enjoy the beautiful scenery of space through the huge viewing window.

This is the real technology giant. Even Amazon, which started as an e-commerce company, has set its sights on the stars and the sea, not the vegetable market.

Musk and Bezos are both leaders in their respective fields in the business war. Musk is the head of PayPal and Tesla, while Amazon, founded by Bezos, is the largest online shopping website in the United States. .

Musk is a strange man. Many previous arguments regarded him as Steve Jobs's successor, but this really underestimated him - this guy's ambition is to reach the stars and the sea. The great thing about Jobs is that he has achieved unparalleled success in many fields such as personal computers, music, movies, and mobile phones. However, these fields can ultimately be attributed to the category of mass consumption, and the fields that Musk has crossed over It is much broader, ranging from electronic payment, electric vehicles, solar energy, to rail trains, brain-computer interfaces, and interstellar travel, all kinds of things in the sky and on the earth. It seems that the imagination is random, but in fact it has its own internal logic - to ensure The survival of human civilization will in turn promote the improvement of the Kardashov Index. Seeing the fate of all mankind as one's own responsibility is so arrogant and self-dedicated.

Essentially, Musk is an engineer. His mission is to maximize the power of engineering and push the marginal benefits of scientific theories to the limit in the most cost-effective way.

In sharp contrast to Musk's arrogant and unruly style, Bezos's low-key and pragmatic style. If Musk is a master of Muay Thai, fierce and powerful, and punches to the flesh, then Bezos is more like a Tai Chi master, with long-lasting internal strength and unhurriedness - he built a ten thousand year clock on a piece of land in the mountains of western Texas. The clock ticks once every 100 years, rings once every 1,000 years, and rings every 10,000 years. "This is a symbol, an icon that represents contemplation."

Bezos likes to use turtles as mascots. He believes that the slower he is, the closer he will be to success. Slowness is not scary. As long as you persist and have goals, you will definitely be able to realize your dreams. Blue Origin uses "turtle" as its logo.

So his Blue Origin has been very low-key and mysterious from the beginning. Before they were sure of success, everyone didn't even know that Blue Origin had existed for more than ten years, and they didn't know what the company was doing all day long. Until November 2015, Blue Origin achieved rocket launch and recovery: the company successfully launched the Blue Origin New Shepard developed by the company to an altitude of 100 kilometers, and then the rocket body landed intact at the predetermined ground location. This is the first time that humans have realized the recycling and reuse of rockets, which immediately caused a sensation in the world. In terms of his love and dedication to space, Bezos is as good as anyone.

What is gratifying is that my country’s commercial aerospace has also taken off. 2015 is known as the first year of China’s commercial aerospace. Although it is still in the early stages of development, under the policy support environment, it is also A large number of commercial aerospace companies with potential have emerged. As of the end of 2019, the cumulative number of Chinese commercial aerospace companies, including rocket companies and satellite companies, has exceeded 160, and they have also achieved good results. Blue Arrow Aerospace, known as China's first rocket development company, successfully launched the "Zhuque-2" carrier rocket. In addition, Zero-One Space, Interstellar Glory, etc. have successfully launched their independently developed commercial rockets. I believe they can grow into a commercial aerospace company comparable to SpaceX and Blue Origin in the future.