The space race appears to have gotten personal, becoming a battlefield of the billionaire egos, as the world’s richest vie for pole position on the Moon, Mars, and beyond. Jeff Bezos is next in line, having announced he’ll be blasting off on 20 July 2021, just after stepping down as Amazon CEO in a month’s time. Bezos, currently one of the world’s top three richest men, will (if everything goes according to plan), cross the Kármán line (the internationally recognized border to outer space) in his own company, Blue Origin’s, New Shepard space rocket, and then come back down to Earth. Literally.

Last week, an anonymous bidder paid $28 million to join him on the flight, no insignificant chunk of change.

So, who else from the elite echelons of the super-rich have similar plans to head to space?

Find out below.

Which billionaires are planning space flights in 2021?

Apart from Jeff Bezos, a number of other super-wealthy individuals have planned space flights this year. They include:

  • Jared Isaacman, Founder and CEO of Shift4 Payments, will take command of the SpaceX Dragon flight’s geocentric orbit, scheduled for September 2021.
  • Japanese billionaire entrepreneur, Yusaku Maezawa, founder of Zozotown, has plans to head for space, not once, but twice! In May he announced he’s heading off as part of a 12-day mission in December aboard a Russian Soyuz spacecraft to the International Space Station and in 2023 he’s booked a seat on SpaceX's Starship’s manned moon orbit.
  • Richard Branson has plans to reach space this year as part of the third manned test flight of the VSS Unity, Virgin Galactic’s commercial spacecraft. The exact date of departure is yet to be confirmed.

Can we judge the world’s richest for their personal space ambitions?

Ever since he was a small, five-year-old boy, Jeff Bezos announced on Instagram this month, he’s wanted to go to space.

What small child hasn’t dreamed the same dream? Raised on a diet of Star Trek and Star Wars, every generation since forever -- and especially from when it became a reality with Russian, Yuri Gagarin, becoming the first man in space in 1961 -- has yearned to cross, “space – the final frontier!”

Being an astronaut and discovering new worlds is the ultimate adventure-fantasy, after all. Space travel and exploration can also lead to new scientific discoveries that can enhance (or protect) life on Earth. But will billionaires really be contributing to science through their presence?

The ego has landed: is the billionaire space race selfish or far-seeing?

Should the world’s richest men be spending their billions on space exploration projects (simultaneously indulging their own cosmological fantasies) when our own planet is in serious environmental trouble?

Time will tell whether history views today’s billionaire recreational astronauts as space cowboys or space crooks. Watch this (…ahem) space.

Read more about past or forthcoming space adventures of the world’s superrich here.