Jeff Bezos, Amazon founder and head of space privateer firm Blue Origin, has taken to Twitter to brag about the “rarest of beasts”, a reusable space rocket that can land vertically. (Unsaid: unlike Elon Musk’s many exploding SpaceX rockets.)
After the many “almost” tweets from Musk, as his rocket very nearly landed before actually exploding or, as he put it, suffered “rapid unscheduled disassembly”, Bezos showed he is no longer playing catchup in the tech billionaire space rocket race as his New Shepard touched down.
The rarest of beasts - a used rocket. Controlled landing not easy, but done right, can look easy. Check out video: https://t.co/9OypFoxZk3
— Jeff Bezos (@JeffBezos) November 24, 2015
Burn.
Musk, ever the complimentary fellow, congratulated Bezos for “achieving VTOL on their booster” (that’s vertical takeoff and landing) before clarifying:
It is, however, important to clear up the difference between "space" and "orbit", as described well by https://t.co/7PD42m37fZ
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) November 24, 2015
Getting to space needs ~Mach 3, but GTO orbit requires ~Mach 30. The energy needed is the square, i.e. 9 units for space and 900 for orbit.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) November 24, 2015
Ouch.
With SpaceX being given the order to take US astronauts to the International Space Station by Nasa, following in the footsteps of similar orders given to Boeing, Musk at least has that feather in his cap.
Let’s just hope Musk can follow Bezos’ example and land his SpaceX rocket sooner rather than later.
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