Dmitry Rogozin, the head of Russian space agency Roscosmos, is inviting SpaceX CEO Elon Musk to his home to discuss a myriad of topics, including exploring the universe and extraterrestrial life.
‘Mr. Elon Musk realizes many of the ideas and thoughts that we wanted to realize, but did not get to because, after the breakup of the Soviet Union, our space program halted for some time,’ Rogozin said in an interview with CNN, his first with a western media outlet since taking over the agency.
‘We respect him as an organizer of the space industry and as an inventor, who is not afraid to take risk.’
Dmitry Rogozin is inviting Elon Musk to his home to discuss a myriad of topics, including exploring the universe and extraterrestrial life
Rogozin added in the interview that he will invite Musk to his Russian home to discuss ‘exploring the universe, extraterrestrial life, and how we can use space to preserve life on Earth.’
‘I already set the teakettle on heat,’ Rogozin said.
Musk responded, tweeting at Rogozin, asking him what his favorite kind of tea is.
Musk responded, tweeting at Rogozin, asking him what his favorite kind of tea is
Rogozin said he envies what Musk as well as Blue Origin’s Jeff Bezos and Virgin Galactic’s Sir Richard Branson are doing with their respective companies and space tourism.
‘I like what your people are doing — people who spend their own money on things useful for overall society,’ Rogozin said.
He added that he wished Russian oligarchs would take up an interest in space.
‘Our millionaires prefer to invest more in yachts rather than in spaceships,’ Rogozin, Roscosmos’ director general said.
‘But maybe kids of current Russian millionaires will be much more wise creatures.’
No date has been set yet and Musk and Rogozin have not yet responded to requests for comment.
The interview comes just days after Musk and SpaceX showed off new images of the glass dome that astronauts on the upcoming Inspiration4 mission will be able to view space from.
Unlike the flights that Richard Branson and Jeff Bezos took earlier this summer, this flight from Musk’s SpaceX will go into orbit.
It is aiming for an altitude of 335 miles, 75 miles higher than the International Space Station and on a level with the Hubble Space Telescope.
SpaceX’s other Dragon capsules have docking capabilities at the top of the nose cone to allow it to merge with the ISS.
On July 11, Branson flew 53.5 miles above the Earth’s surface on Virgin Galactic’s VSS Unity craft.
Nine days later, Bezos joined the club, flying 66 miles high in a 10 minute trip that took off from Launch Site One in Van Horn, Texas.
THE BILLIONAIRE SPACE RACE: HOW BRANSON, MUSK AND BEZOS ARE VYING FOR GALACTIC SUPREMACY
Jeff Bezos in front of Blue Origin’s space capsule
Dubbed the ‘NewSpace’ set, Jeff Bezos, Sir Richard Branson and Elon Musk all say they were inspired by the first moon landing in 1969, when the US beat the Soviet Union in the space race, and there is no doubt how much it would mean to each of them to win the ‘new space race’.
Amazon founder Bezos had looked set to be the first of the three to fly to space, having announced plans to launch aboard his space company Blue Origin’s New Shepard spacecraft on July 20.
The billionaire mogul will travel with his younger brother Mark, a charity auction winner who’s shelling out $28 million and pioneering female astronaut Wally Funk, 82.
However, Branson has now announced he’s planning to make a suborbital flight nine days before Bezos and his brother. He revealed on Twitter that he plans to be Astronaut 001 on Virgin Galactic’s July 11 test flight.
Although SpaceX and Tesla founder Musk has said he wants to go into space, and even ‘die on Mars’, he has not said when he might blast into orbit.
SpaceX appears to be leading the way in the broader billionaire space race with numerous launches carrying NASA equipment to the ISS and partnerships to send tourists to space by 2021.
On February 6 2018, SpaceX sent rocket towards the orbit of Mars, 140 million miles away, with Musk’s own red Tesla roadster attached.
Elon Musk with his Dragon Crew capsule
NASA has already selected two astronauts who will be on-board the first manned Dragon mission.
SpaceX has also started sending batches of 60 satellites into space to help form its Starlink network.
Musk hopes this will provide an interconnected web of satellites around Earth which will beam down free internet to people worldwide.
Branson and Virgin Galactic are taking a different approach to conquering space. It has repeatedly, and successfully, conducted test flights of the Virgin Galactic’s Unity space plane.
The first took place in December 2018 and the latest on May 22, with the flight accelerating to more than 2,000 miles per hour (Mach 2.7).
More than 600 affluent customers to date, including celebrities Brad Pitt and Katy Perry, have reserved a $250,000 (£200,000) seat on one of Virgin’s space trips.
Branson has previously said he expects Elon Musk to win the race to Mars with his private rocket firm SpaceX.
Richard Branson with the Virgin Galactic craft
SpaceShipTwo can carry six passengers and two pilots. Each passenger gets the same seating position with two large windows – one to the side and one overhead.
The space ship is 60ft long with a 90inch diameter cabin allowing maximum room for the astronauts to float in zero gravity.
It climbs to 50,000ft before the rocket engine ignites. SpaceShipTwo separates from its carrier craft, White Knight II, once it has passed the 50-mile mark.
Passengers become ‘astronauts’ when they reach the Karman line, the boundary of Earth’s atmosphere.
The spaceship will then make a suborbital journey with approximately six minutes of weightlessness, with the entire flight lasting approximately 1.5 hours.
Bezos revealed in April 2017 that he finances Blue Origin with around $1 billion (£720 million) of Amazon stock each year.
The system consists of a pressurised crew capsule atop a reusable ‘New Shepard’ booster rocket.
Bezos is one of the richest men in the world and Blue Origin has successfully flown the New Shepard rocket 15 times.
At its peak, the capsule reached 65 miles (104 kilometres), just above the official threshold for space and landed vertically seven minutes after liftoff.
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