Jeff Bezos: 5 things you need to know after his space flight

The billionaires have battled it out and made it to space (Source: Getty/AAP)

Jeff Bezos has made it to space, after being beaten by Sir Richard Branson who successfully made the trip nine days earlier.

Now that the billionaires have ‘been there, done that’, what comes next?

Here are five things you should know now that they have crossed the final frontier.

1. Commercial space travel may be closer than you think

While it’s one thing for billionaires to break the barrier, it’s another all together before we head off on a holiday to the moon.

However, Branson’s Virgin Galactic has already started taking pre-orders to take a flight on his spacecraft.

It requires a US$10,000 (AU$13,637) deposit and will cost a total of US$250,000. So far people like Justin Beiber and Lady Gaga have put down a deposit.

Virgo Galactic is aiming to run commercial flights as early as next year.

2. Elon Musk will not travel on his own spacecraft...yet

It seems Elon Musk has put his eggs in Branson’s basket and is one of the 600 people who put down a deposit for Branson’s Virgin Galactic.

While Musk has also set his sights on space his goal is not on commercialising space travel but rather is making space technology renewable and he has been working with NASA.

However, Musk has said he aims to help humans branch out and build a civilisation on Mars so there is a reasonable chance he will fly on one of his own spacecrafts one day.

3. The ultimate goal is intergalactic living

Bezos, Musk and Branson all imagine a future where people can live and work in space and/or other planets in the solar system.

For them, these space flights are merely the beginning of human civilization's adventure out of this planet.

4. We don’t know how much it will cost

While Branson is selling initial tickets for US$250,000 and the spare seat on Bezos’ flight was auctioned for US$28 million, we still don’t know how much it will cost to go to space once there are regular flights happening.

Space travel is expensive, and while Musk, Bezos and Branson have been focused on reusing essential parts, the cost of fuel alone is around US$200,000 per flight.

5. This may be a money losing endeavour

Thank god it’s the billionaires who are launching these projects because other people and Governments certainly couldn't afford it.

It has been wildly expensive and only one of these companies has made a profit so far with the billionaire spending plenty of their own money.

This is how much each has spent:

Blue Origin

It is thought that Bezons has spent around US$7.5 billion of his own money funding the space company.

Virgin Galactic

Branson is thought to have spent at least US$1.4 billion of his own money. Virgin Galactic was also reported to have been losing around US$190 million every year.

SpaceX

Musk initially put US$100 million into SpaceX but thanks to his contracts with NASA, he is the only one to have made a profit so far and the company is now worth US$36 billion.

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