by Sofia & Leah

The biggest billionaires of the biggest companies in the world, Jeff Bezos, Elon Musk and Richard Branson, are racing to see who can profit from space the fastest. Bezos and Branson have already had trips into space, only lasting a few minutes each and costing several billion dollars. The end goal of this race is to see who can get suborbital space tourism the fastest. Maybe someday we will all be taking vacations in space.

Each billionaire has its own space company. Musk’s company is called  SpaceX, Bezos has BlueOrigin and Barson is VirginGalactic. The highest rocket in space right now is from Bezos and is 100 kilometres in altitude. Branson and Bezos have been to space on short trips, making them the first private space tourists. So how much money did they spend? Well, the amount of money that just Bezos spent on a 4-minute trip could have saved 37.5 million people from hunger (the approximate population of Canada). Or he could fully fund COVAX and vaccinate two billion people.Space tourism

The US Government helped these massive corporations with the race and the large-scale capitalism through grants. This impacts local citizens because some of these massive companies don’t pay their share of taxes and are spending tax money on things that might not benefit them. Billionaires are also known for not paying as much in taxes as they should. 

 Rockets in general use a lot of fossil fuel which turns into carbon dioxide. That carbon dioxide goes to the atmosphere and speeds up global warming. It’s our world that these companies are changing for their profits.

This race has not ended yet, there is still no winner clear and determined. There is still no idea when this race will end and what is going to happen after or during the race. The winner since it is not clear and determined it could be any of the three men, what do you think? What is your opinion about the space race?