Who will be the ultimate winner of the new billionaire space race?
It took just 59 minutes for Sir Richard Branson to fulfil his childhood dream. On Sunday morning, at the Spaceport launch station in the New Mexico desert, the 70-year-old British billionaire climbed aboard the VSS Unity. His cheeks puffed as the rocket blasted through a cloudless sky, reaching a high point of 55 miles above the Earths surface. At the top, Sir Richard and his five fellow astronauts floated around for several minutes in a state of weightlessness. They would have been able to see about half of Americas land mass, including the white snow-capped mountains of the Rockies, plus the striking blue of the Pacific Ocean  a view that sticks in your soul, according to American astronaut Beth Moses, who was also on board. Then he returned, touching down to cheers from a gathering of fellow entrepreneurs. What a day, what a day, he said. I [have] dreamt of this moment since I was a kid, but nothing can prepare you for the view from space.  It fired the starting gun on what analysts are calling a new billionaire space race. The rocket took off just nine days before Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, the worlds wealthiest individual, sets off on an even more ambitious mission aboard his New Shepard rocket, which will propel him 62 miles away from the Earths surface. Also joining 57-year-old Bezos is his brother, Mark; and pilot Wally Funk, who was denied the job of an astronaut in the Sixties because she was a woman. If the first space race was driven by Cold War competition between superpowers, this iteration is driven largely by private entrepreneurs looking to make money (and, yes, perhaps a dash of male ego, too). And as with any space race, this one is getting dirty. An argument has already broken out over whether Sir Richards expedition even counts as space travel. The exact boundaries of space have been contested for years. A popular demarcation pinpoints the beginning of space about 62 miles (100km) above sea level, a point known as the Krmn line, where the Earths atmosphere is no longer able to support vessels flying slower than about 25,000 miles per hour. Sir Richards flight fell short of this imaginary barrier by seven miles  a detail that Team Bezos was quick to point out; if all goes to plan on July 20, Bezoss jet will slightly break the Krmn line. [The Branson expedition didnt involve] flying above the Krmn line, and its a very different experience, said Bob Smith, CEO of Blue Origin, Bezoss space company.