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Race for space - 30th July 2021

Billionaires Jeff Bezos and Richard Branson have travelled into space. They are competing to start space tourism.

Branson took off first in his Virgin Galactic spaceship, Unity 22.

It's been his dream since he was a child.

Richard Branson: To all you kids down there, I was once a child with a dream looking up to the stars. Now, I’m an adult in a spaceship, with lots of other wonderful adults looking down to our beautiful, beautiful Earth. To the next generation of dreamers: if we can do this, just imagine what you can do.

Bezos's spaceship, Blue Origin, went up 9 days later. It took Bezos and his brother Mark into space. They were joined by Wally Funk and Oliver Daemen. 82 year old Wally is the oldest astronaut. She did astronaut training 60 years ago. But NASA wouldn't send women into space. 18 year old Oliver is the first passenger to pay for space travel.

Bezos quit as Amazon's CEO to focus on big problems. He's started a space project and the Earth Fund. Branson promises $25 million to any project that can clean the atmosphere. However, does space travel help the environment or the atmosphere?

Jeff Bezos: We’re going to build a road to space, so that our kids and their kids can build the future. And we need to do that. We need to do that to solve the problems here on Earth.