Space race

Billionaires’ battle to reach the stars

SPACE X 2002

Elon Musk (below) founds Spacex with the goal of colonising Mars

2005

First launch of Musk’s Falcon 1 rocket crashes in less than a minute

2008

Spacex’s Falcon 1 becomes the first privately developed rocket to orbit Earth

2012

Musk’s Dragon rocket becomes first commercial spacecraft to deliver cargo to the International Space Station (ISS)

2020

Spacex becomes the first private company to take astronauts to ISS

2022

Nasa gives further funding to Spacex’s Starship spacecraft to go to the Moon

VIRGIN 2004

Sir Richard Branson launches space tourism company Virgin Galactic

2007

Sir Richard misses his target for first commercial flight to space

2014

Michael Alsbury, 39, dies and Peter Siebold, 43, is

2017

seriously hurt as VSS Enterprise breaks apart on test flight (below) Virgin Orbit is founded with the aim of using the Cosmic Girl aircraft to send the Launcherone rocket to space

2021

The Launcherone rocket delivers 10 mini satellites into orbit. Sir Richard travels on Virgin Galactic Unity 22 to the edge of space, 14 years later than he originally hoped

2023

First launch from Spaceport Cornwall ends in failure as anomaly means the rocket fails to reach its intended orbit