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Summer 2021 two of the richest entrepreneurs danced in space for a very short time. Richard Branson reached an altitude of 80 kilometers from New Mexico on the spacecraft Unity. Just days later, Jeff Bezos of Blue Origin took to the skies, along with his brother, an 82-year-old female aviation pioneer the Dutch winner of a $28 million charity auction. Now, less than two years later, Virgin Orbit, Branson's space company, has had to file for bankruptcy. The company has been unable to continue operations.

Admittedly: Virgin Orbit is somewhat different from Virgin Galactic, Branson's space tourism company, but it too is said to be facing problems. It has not flown for about a year and a half.

Branson would like to conduct tourist space flights before the end of this year. There are eight hundred customers on the waiting list. And those have to pay a total of $450,000 (397,000 euros).

Virgin Orbit is the company that puts space satellites into orbit. It launches rockets from among modified Boeing 747 aircraft. The company ran into financial trouble after a failed space rocket launch earlier this year. It was already announced last week that the vast majority of its staff will be laid off. It employed 750 people.

Blue Origin launched six manned space missions so far with the reusable New Shepard, taking 32 people to space.

Then things went badly wrong. Flames erupted from the rocket engines that were supposed to carry the capsule carrying NASA equipment, among other things, into space. The U.S. aviation authority FAA is still investigating that incident, as a result of which no missions with the New Shepard may take place for the time being, even though it was an unmanned flight.

Jeff Bezos still wants to launch the first women-only space flight early next year. That flight will be led by Lauren Sanchez, Bezos' girlfriend.

Elon Musk's SpaceX also still wants to take people to space for a fee with its new spacecraft Starship. The company sold a trip around the moon to a Japanese billionaire last year, but he has yet to be hoisted into a spacesuit.

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