亿万富翁贝佐斯和穆斯克的口水战

太空竞赛出现了阶段性赢家，这位赢家就是亚马逊CEO杰夫•贝佐斯。

11月23日，这名亿万富翁麾下的蓝色起源公司（Blue Origin），顺利完成了其制造的可重复使用火箭的发射和着陆。该公司一直就堪称业界“黑马”。

为了纪念首位进入太空的美国人Alan Shepard，该公司特意将其太空飞船命名为“New Shepard”。当天，太空飞船顺利升至62英里（约100千米）的高空后分离为BE-3型火箭和太空舱，随后降落在蓝色起源公司设在德州范霍恩的神秘基地中。

贝佐斯称，New Shepard本次飞行“非常完美”，而且火箭可以重复利用，有望降低航天成本，这“将改变行业格局”。为了庆祝，贝佐斯还发表了自己的第一篇Twitter消息：“稀有神兽，一枚使用过的火箭。”（rarest of beasts, a used rocket.）

而正是这短短几十字的一句话，引发了美国科技界两位当红亿万富翁的口水战。

特斯拉CEO埃隆•穆斯克最初先是在Twitter上祝贺了蓝色起源公司和贝索斯：“祝贺贝索斯和蓝色起源团队取得垂直发射与降落的成功。”

但是，他随后对贝索斯的消息回应称，“并不相当‘稀有’，”并称旗下SpaceX在三年前就已利用试验火箭Grasshopper完成了6次亚轨道飞行。他直言，“杰夫或许不清楚SpaceX的亚轨道垂直起降飞行始于2013年。”

硅谷风险投资人马克•安德森也加入讨论，但他并未站在任何一边。他开玩笑说，“区域人士加入了Twitter，来展示他的火箭。@杰夫•贝索斯。”

顾问公司Teal Group太空研究总监马克•卡普雷斯也表示，“马斯克第一次真正感到了竞争压力。贝索斯早已制定了发展轨道工具的计划。如果他能够让自己的技术变得更完美，就能够同马斯克一较高下。”

有意思的是，马斯克表达醋意之后，贝佐斯并未在Twitter上进行互动回应。

贝索斯与穆斯克的口水之争表明，私人太空领域正引来新的发展力量。

事实上，穆斯克旗下SpaceX也已制造出可重复使用太空船猎鹰9号，但尚未实现安全着陆。今年以来，SpaceX的多次发射都以失败告终。在最近的一次发射中，火箭升空不久后就发生了爆炸。穆斯克称，这次事故“是个重大挫折。”今年早些时候，SpaceX的另一枚火箭在海上浮动平台成功着陆，但随即倾倒。不过，穆斯克在推特上发文称，SpaceX已成功尝试在短程近地试飞中回收火箭。

也许直接比较这两种飞船并不是很公平。科技新闻网站Engadget指出，SpaceX的火箭以进入卫星轨道为目标，飞行速度达到10马赫；New Shepard仅达到次轨道高度，速度也只有3.7马赫。速度和高度的差别让SpaceX的工作变得难得多。

正如穆斯克所言，“不过区分太空和轨道的区别同等重要，它凸显了目前太空企业在技术上的差距。”

而且，私人太空领域也并非第一次迎来新生力量。和蓝色起源开发可用于商业太空旅行的太空船一样，英国亿万富翁理查德•布兰森的维珍银河也有类似的目标，但是，该公司今年飞船坠毁造成了试飞员丧生，这让维珍银河备受打击。（财富中文网）

译者：Charlie

审校：夏林

A comparison between the two vehicles is not exactly fair though.

This space race has a victor for now.

Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos just scored a major win in the current space race.

Blue Origin, the billionaire’s dark-horse rocket company, successfully launched and landed its reusable rocket on Monday.

The company’s New Shepard space vehicle (named in honor of the first American in space, Alan Shepard) soared to a height of 62 miles, separated into its component parts (a BE-3 rocket and crew capsule), and then touched down amid the desert landscape of its secretive facility in Van Horn, Texas.

Bezos said the rocket “flew a flawless mission” and that its reusability, which promises to lessen the cost of spaceflight, “is a game changer.” The chief exec posted his first tweet to inaugurate the event.

SpaceX, the rocket company founded by Tesla CEO Elon Musk, has yet to safely stick the landing for its reusable Falcon 9 spacecraft during operational runs. The company has succeeded, however, in recovering boosters for shorter, closer-to-Earth test flights, as Musk pointed out on Twitter.

A comparison between the two vehicles is not exactly fair though. Whereas Musk’s rocket shoots for an orbital altitude and travels at speeds around Mach 10, Bezos’s rocket reaches suborbital heights at Mach 3.7 velocity, notes the tech news site Engadget. The difference in momentum and elevation makes SpaceX’s task much more difficult.

A number of Musk’s missions have ended poorly this year. A recent SpaceX launch ended in disaster soon after takeoff when one of the company’s rocket exploded mid-flight, an incident that Musk described as “definitely a setback.” Earlier this year, another SpaceX rocket tipped over shortly after touching down on an ocean barge.

Despite their rivalry, Musk congratulated Bezos’s team on Twitter…

… while making sure to note that the two company’s distinct missions are not exactly comparable.

The team at Blue Origin seeks to develop spacecraft for commercial space tourism. Another spaceflight company with similar designs—Virgin Galactic, owned by British billionaire Richard Branson—suffered a blow when one of its test pilots died in a crash this year.