The Business Musk vs Bezos: The new race for space
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Dec 25, 2025 
Christian Davenport, a journalist at the Washington Post and author of Rocket Dreams, dives into the thrilling competition between Elon Musk's SpaceX and Jeff Bezos's Blue Origin. He shares fascinating insights from his interviews with both tech titans and illuminates their differing approaches to space. Davenport discusses the revolutionary shift of space from government to private hands, the implications of mining extraterrestrial resources, and the growing U.S.-China space rivalry. With an eye on future possibilities, he predicts an evolving commercial space economy and the challenges ahead.
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Bezos' Four-Hour Factory Tour
- Jeff Bezos once spent almost four hours walking journalists through Blue Origin's factory lines and translating engineering details into layman terms.
- Christian Davenport says that rare access showed Bezos' deep personal commitment to Blue Origin as his life's work.
Challenging Orthodoxy Wins Contracts
- SpaceX's culture prizes fresh-eyed engineers who challenge handed-down solutions and build simpler designs.
- That approach let SpaceX replace NASA hardware and win credibility by proving better, faster solutions.
Shuttle Failure Opened Private Opportunity
- The space shuttle promised rapid reusability but never delivered, creating bureaucratic caution at NASA.
- That paralysis opened a private-sector opportunity which Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos seized with reusable-rocket programs.