Spacex
Founder: Elon Musk (Founder of Paypal and Tesla Motors)
Started in: 2002
Goals: Specialize in Cargo Delivery
Started in: 2002
Goals: Specialize in Cargo Delivery
Virgin galactic
Founder: Richard Branson (Founder of Virgin Group)
Started in: 2004
Goals: Offer Trips to Space for Tourism
Started in: 2004
Goals: Offer Trips to Space for Tourism
Blue Origin
Founder: Jeff Bezos (Founder of Amazon.com)
Started in: 2000
Goals: Specialize in Suborbital Flights
Started in: 2000
Goals: Specialize in Suborbital Flights
The current era for the space exploration industry is one where the commercialization of space is occurring in a rapid fashion. There are numerous amounts of private space companies currently in existence, today, and they all have high ambitions and expectations. Space travel tends to be on the costly side when compared to many other industries, so it is just expected that these private space companies receive the majority funding from wealthy investors. These wealthy businessmen have a passion for aeronautics and space, and therefore are truly making an effort to advance space innovation. This is nothing new. This same sort of act has been happening for over one hundred years. One particular example involves the wealthy Guggenheim family of the early 1800s. According to Michael Burgan of the Las Cruces Sun News, the Guggenheim family was perhaps the biggest private contributor to the space industry of the past. Guggenheim’s passion for space and money, of course, was the primary resource for Robert Goddard’s development of the rocket. Goddard’s experiments and trials in efforts to develop the first true rocket were all funded and backed by the Guggenheim family. It can truly be said that the Guggenheim family were one of the main reasons for the Rocket Age. Today, just a couple of the well-known investors in private space exploration include Richard Branson of Virgin Galactic and Elon Musk of SpaceX. Perhaps, these men are following in the footsteps of the Guggenheim family or perhaps in the footsteps of “philanthropists from Andrew Carnegie to John D. Rockefeller [who] helped fund… elaborate technology for scanning the cosmos” (Burgan, 2012).