Battle of the Billionaires: SpaceX Astronaut Jumps Ship to Blue Origin

The personal area race continues with a shuffling of personnel between corporations: astronaut Chris Sembroski introduced through Twitter that he’ll will likely be becoming a member of Blue Origin after beforehand working with SpaceX.

The race again to area has picked up the tempo over the previous couple of years as Elon Musk’s SpaceX and Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin have leapt to the entrance of the herd of personal area corporations, serving as one another’s competitors within the return to area. But Blue Origin might now have a slight higher hand, as Chris Sembroski, an astronaut who beforehand flew on SpaceX’s Inspiration4, has formally joined Blue Origin as an Avionics Engineer based on his LinkedIn. Sembroski beforehand served within the United States Air Force earlier than working at Lockheed Martin as an engineer.

“Space beckons us. It taunts us. Images from Hubble and [the James Webb Space Telescope] pull on our desires to explore and to seek new adventure,” Sembroski tweeted. “I am thrilled to be a part of our expansion out to the rest of the universe. Let’s go!”

SpaceX and Blue Origin’s rivalry got here to forward in April 2021 when NASA selected SpaceX for a contract to construct the lunar lander that might carry people again to the moon, which Blue Origin (and presumably Jeff Bezos) was not completely satisfied about. Blue Origin then sued NASA over the choice and subsequently misplaced. Blue Origin additionally misplaced over a dozen high-ranking staffers throughout a number of months in 2021, with at the very least one in all them opting to take a place at SpaceX. But working for Musk’s SpaceX is not any stroll within the park, as the corporate fired a number of workers who penned a letter that critiqued Musk’s habits on Twitter based on reviews from final month.

The billionaire area race is one thing else: As Musk and Bezos proceed to duke it out, the remainder of us are compelled to easily watch from the sidelines and cope with their penalties.