Sir Richard Branson and Jeff Bezos each want to be the first to make commercial space travel a thing. And it seems that Branson is eager to personally beat the Amazon billionaire into space as well.
Branson told BBC Radio 4 over the weekend that he is undertaking a variety of training, including astronaut training, fitness training, and centrifuge, so that his body "will hopefully cope well." As part of his training, he's doubling his tennis playing to four sets a day. Branson reportedly hopes to become an astronaut with his company Virgin Galactic within 12 months.
Discussing who will get there first, Branson told the BBC that he and Bezos are "neck and neck as to who will put people into space first." But, he added, they "have to do it safely," calling it a "race with ourselves" to ensure that they each build a shuttle that is safe enough to send people to space.
Bezos, meanwhile, hopes to start offering suborbital space tourism flights by 2019. Calling his work with his space company Blue Origin "the most important work" he's doing at the Space Development Conference last week, Bezos also highlighted a need to focus on the moon as a place for eventual settlement.