TYCOONS EDGE OUT INTO SPACE

THREE tycoons are vying to live out their childhood sci-fi fantasies, bankrolling efforts to explore outer space.

Tesla chief executive Elon Musk, Amazon boss Jeff Bezos and Virgin Group’s Richard Branson all run private space companies in addition to their main jobs.

Musk’s SpaceX has won launch contracts with NASA, and has successfully executed more than 30 space missions.

The company said in February it will fly two space tourists to the moon next year.

SpaceX’s ultimate goal is to travel to Mars, and eventually colonize it. “I want to die on Mars,” Musk has said, “just not on impact.”

Like Musk, Bezos also wants to reuse rockets to reduce the cost of space travel.

His Blue Origin outfit has launched and landed the same rocket, named New Shepherd, on five different occasions. But these flights were suborbital, and only travelled about 60 miles from Earth.

Virgin Galactic wants to fly a reusable space plane called SpaceShipTwo. It takes off like an airplane, and the idea is for the plane to travel about 10 miles above Earth where it will release a spaceship carrying passengers, who will then travel about 60 miles from Earth before returning.

Virgin Galactic has even started selling tickets – for about £195,000 a pop.

Celebs Justin Bieber and Ashton Kutcher have already signed up.