Jeff Bezos' Blue Origin takes dig at Richard Branson's Virgin Galactic spaceflight

Billionaire entrepreneurs Jeff Bezos and Richard Branson have been in the news lately. The two had earlier announced that they would launch themselves into space without insurance for injury or death, to prove their company’s competency. Now, Branson has made it to space while Bezos will wait another eight days to complete the feat. Hours before the British tycoon flew into space aboard a Virgin Galactic vessel, its competitor Blue Origin launched a marketing campaign claiming to have the ‘better experience’.

Blue Origin vs Virgin Galactic Twitter war

Jeff Bezos' Blue Origin took to social media to share a series of tweets comparing itself to Richard Branson's Virgin Galactic. Continuing their fight to have the ‘space supremacy’, Bezos’ Blue Origin stated that the Virgin flight didn’t fly above the Kármán line. The tweets by Blue Origin started a series of questions and answers to assert why flying with it would provide a better experience to travellers.

Sharing a picture consisting of a list of QnAs on the travel features of the two, Blue Origin wrote, “From the beginning, New Shepard was designed to fly above the Kármán line so none of our astronauts has an asterisk next to their name. For 96% of the world’s population, space begins 100 km up at the internationally recognized Kármán line.”

“Only 4% of the world recognizes a lower limit of 80 km or 50 miles as the beginning of space. New Shepard flies above both boundaries. One of the many benefits of flying with Blue Origin,” it added. This was picked up by Twitter users who tagged Virgin Galactic under the post and asked them to reply. However, a part of netizens dismissed this and said that it was a 'childish move’. Blue Origin took a dig at its competition saying its New Shepard rocket would fly above the Kármán line “so none of our astronauts has an asterisk next to their name”.

Jeff Bezos to fly to space on July 20

Former Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos will fly to the edge of space on Blue Origin’s first crewed launch on July 20. Bezos will be joined by Wally Flunk who will become the oldest person ever to travel to space. He will also be joined by an unidentified person who paid $28 million for a seat in the craft. Blue Origin's rocket is set to fly 62 miles above sea level passing the Karman Line and thus beating the height of Richard Branson spaceflight.

IMAGE: AP/ TWITTER