Billionaire space race

This led to Paul Allen becoming involved in the competition, creating the Scaled Composites Tier One platform of SpaceShipOne and White Knight One which won the Ansari X-Prize in 2004.

Then SpaceX landed a Falcon 9 first stage, which had been used to launch a satellite into orbit, prompting more Twitter battles at the start of 2016, such as Bezos tweeting "welcome to the club".

[7][23] In late 2016, Blue Origin announced the New Glenn, directly competing against SpaceX's Falcon Heavy, with a larger rocket but lower payload.

[24] At the 2016 International Astronautical Congress in Guadalajara, Mexico, Blue Origin President Rob Meyerson elaborated on the Bezos vision previously outlined in the New Glenn announcement.

The Blue Origin New Armstrong would be similar in function to the SpaceX Interplanetary Transport System that Elon Musk unveiled at the same conference.

[25] In April 2021, SpaceX beat Blue Origin to a $2.9 billion contract to build the lunar lander for NASA's Artemis program.

[26] In August 2021, Blue Origin subsequently began a legal case against NASA and SpaceX in the Court of Federal Claims, which was dismissed in November of the same year.

[32] The Stratolaunch rivalries are no longer part of the billionaire space race, after 2019, having been suspended at the time of Paul Allen's death.

[10] The critical response to space tourism has lambasted billionaire founders (e.g., Richard Branson and Jeff Bezos) and questioned their environmental, financial, and social/ethical practices.