Leader in the space? Oh please. What? Not quite yet. You understand that Branson's ships have not even been into orbit yet?
Quick quotes from Wikipedia:
1 "
Space Exploration Technologies Corp., trading as
SpaceX, is a
private American
aerospace manufacturer and
space transportation services company headquartered in
Hawthorne, California. It was founded in 2002 by
Elon Musk with the goal of reducing space transportation costs to enable the
colonization of Mars. SpaceX has developed
several launch vehicles and the
Dragon spacecraft. "
2 "The
National Aeronautics and Space Administration (
NASA) is an
independent agency of the
United States Federal Government responsible for the civilian
space program, as well as
aeronautics and
aerospace research.
NASA was established in 1958, succeeding the
National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA). The new agency was to have a distinctly civilian orientation, encouraging peaceful applications in
space science. "
3 "
Blue Origin, LLC is an American
privately funded aerospace manufacturer and
sub-orbital spaceflight services company headquartered in
Kent, Washington. Founded in 2000 by
Jeff Bezos, the company is led by CEO Bob Smith and is developing technologies to enable
private human access to space with the goal to dramatically lower costs and increase reliability. Blue Origin is employing an incremental approach from suborbital to
orbital flight, with each developmental step building on its prior work."
4 "
Momentus Space offers space tugs like Vigoride-1 also known as VR-1. The first launch planned full-scale Vigoride test mission “Strait of Magellan” is planned for Q3 2020 on the Soyuz rocket. Another planned ride is titled “Amber Road” in December 2020 on the SpaceX dedicated rideshare mission."
And then there is
Tesla. Nikola Tesla was a scientific genius who was obsessed with space travel. He worked on a lot of top secret and wild space energy projects. I think that Tesla is going to be the big one for commercial space flights. They are a mature company that is better poised for being the leader of space flights over the long run.