The billionaire space race is heating up.
Virgin Galactic founder Sir Richard Branson is reportedly weighing how he can beat Amazon founder Jeff Bezos to space next month.
Bezos, who has a net worth of about $191 billion, announced on Monday that he and his younger brother will be among the passengers on Blue Origin’s first crewed flight to the edge of space on July 20.
On Tuesday, a source told the blog Parabolic Arc that Virgin Galactic wants to send Branson, who has a net worth of about $6.9 billion, up on a test flight of its VSS Unity SpaceShipTwo rocket plane over the July 4 weekend.
Both men are jockeying to be the first tycoons to make it to space. SpaceX founder Elon Musk hasn’t yet announced any intent to fly to space this summer.
Virgin Galactic’s purported plans come over a month after Blue Origin set July 20 as the date for its flight.
Amazon founder Jeff Bezos is heading into space on July 20. EPA
A Virgin Galactic spokesman told the blog: “We expect to complete the final test flights this summer through to early fall. At this time, we have