{"id":19768,"date":"2011-07-13T23:20:43","date_gmt":"2011-07-13T15:20:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp-productionenv-bjg9h2g2bgg5b8aa.southeastasia-01.azurewebsites.net\/news\/branson-allen-bezos-gear-up-for-the-private-space-race\/"},"modified":"2011-07-13T23:20:43","modified_gmt":"2011-07-13T15:20:43","slug":"branson-allen-bezos-gear-up-for-the-private-space-race","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/news\/branson-allen-bezos-gear-up-for-the-private-space-race\/","title":{"rendered":"Branson, Allen, Bezos gear up for the private space race"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"
Space Shuttle Atlantis on the launch pad last week.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

At the very end of his recent autobiography, Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen briefly teases ahead to a future project \u2014 saying that he\u2019s \u201cjust now considering a new initiative wit that magical contraption I never wearied of sketching as a boy: the rocket ship.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

He adds, \u201cSomeone, after all, is going to have to get behind SpaceShipThree.\u201d<\/p>\n

For anyone just tuning in to this private space travel thing, SpaceShipOne was the X Prize winning suborbital rocket funded by Allen in 2004. SpaceShipTwo, based on technology from its predecessor, is the Virgin Galactic and Scaled Composites spacecraft that\u2019s aiming to launch the era of commercial space tourism.<\/p>\n

Virgin\u2019s Richard Branson, who took the reins from Allen after SpaceShipOne, spoke about the project at Microsoft\u2019s Worldwide Partner conference this morning.<\/p>\n

\u201cGovernments are not going to be running the future of space travel. Private enterprise is,\u201d he said, alluding to the end of the Space Shuttle program, marked by the final launch of Atlantis last week.<\/p>\n

Branson said he expects to be going into space a year from now with his children. \u201cWe\u2019re very, very close, and I think we can bring the price down over the next decade or two to levels where most people in this room ought to be able to become astronauts.\u201d<\/p>\n

Virgin Galactic has been charging $200,000 to reserve a suborbital ride.<\/p>\n

\"\"
Branson via webcast from Microsoft’s Worldwide Partner Conference.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Branson is far from alone in looking spaceward. Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos has been working for years on his own Blue Origin space project, which has operations in Texas but is headquartered south of Seattle, in Kent. Another example: the news we broke last week of a Seattle-area startup, Arkyd, led by X Prize creator Peter Diamandis, that\u2019s pursuing \u201cdisruptive technologies for the commercial robotic exploration of space.\u201d<\/p>\n

Speaking this morning, Branson also talked about point-to-point travel through space: \u201cThe most exciting thing, I suspect, will be intercontinental travel. I came from Australia this morning. It took me 18 hours. Hopefully we\u2019ll be able to do that in about three hours within about 20 years or so.\u201d<\/p>\n

That\u2019s thought to be a big part of the vision for SpaceShipThree.<\/p>\n

So where does Allen stand on that project now? As it turns out, he is not prepared to go beyond the hint he makes at the end of the book.<\/p>\n

However, Allen spokesman David Postman tells us via email, \u201cHis experience with SS1 has made him a believer that the private sector can innovate in space travel and there\u2019s no doubt that the end of the shuttle program and NASA cutbacks in general are putting a bigger burden on industry to step up.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Space Shuttle Atlantis on the launch pad last week. At the very end of his recent autobiography, Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen briefly teases ahead to a future project \u2014 saying that he\u2019s \u201cjust now considering a new initiative wit that magical contraption I never wearied of sketching as a boy: the rocket ship.\u201d He adds, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[190,2672,1390,492],"class_list":["post-19768","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-nasa","tag-paul-allen","tag-space-shuttle","tag-virgin-galactic"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19768"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19768"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19768\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19768"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19768"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19768"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}