If you want to be the richest guy in the universe, apparently you need to shoot a rocket into orbit just to make sure there are no Martians with more money than you, at least accourding to the Wall St Journal. Some of the terrestrial world’s wealthiest men, including Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen and Amazon.com founder Jeff Bezos have backed newfangled private spacecraft. Sometimes these efforts end about as well as the crew’s trip in “2001.” A sample:
Jeff Bezos, Amazon.com rich guy: As our colleague Andy Pasztor just brought you, an unnamed spaceship funded by the billionaire Amazon founder suffered a major failure during a recent test flight. Bezos’s privately funded Blue Origin was awarded NASA money earmarked for new efforts to support manned spaceflights.
Paul Allen, Microsoft rich guy: Allen actually launched his SpaceShipOne in 2004 to an altitude of more than 377,000 feet. Allen’s SpaceShipOne became the first privately-financed craft capable of reaching suborbit in two attempts. For their efforts, Allen’s team won the $10 million X Prize.
Richard Branson, music and air travel rich guy: Virgin Galactic, founded by the British billionaire and playboy Sir Richard Branson, is hoping to collect big bucks from tourists angling for joyrides into weightlessness. Branson originally suggested commercial flights of his weightlessness plane could start in 2008. Then he revised his timeline to 2010. Still no flights….
There's more. Find it at http://blogs.wsj.com/deals/2011/09/02/rich-guys-have-no-luck-in-space/
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