Why Would 3 Billionaires Want to Leave Earth?

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It’s ironic when you think about it.

Rocket launching
Source: 3Dsculptor / Shutterstock.com

Some of the most innovative business builders and wealthiest people on the planet are aggressively trying to leave the planet.

As in… fly into outer space.

One of them now has an actual date on the calendar.

There has always been an allure to the worlds beyond our own. More than 25 centuries ago (yes, centuries!), Socrates said:

Man must rise above the Earth — to the top of the atmosphere and beyond — for only thus will he fully understand the world in which he lives.

Some of this fascination makes for great fiction. And some of it is very real.

With three of the world’s best-known billionaires, it’s very real. And so is the opportunity for smart investors…

The names are a who’s who of successful and innovative CEOs.

Richard Branson, founder of the Virgin Group and worth $5.2 billion. His group now includes Virgin Galactic (NYSE:SPCE), which just recently completed a successful test of a spaceship with three crew members aboard. Virgin Galactic’s goal? To “be the spaceline for Earth.”

Elon Musk, founder of Tesla (NASDAQ:TSLA) and SpaceX, and worth more than $150 billion. SpaceX wants to lower space transportation costs. And Musk doesn’t do anything small, so his ultimate goal is to send humans to Mars.

Then there is Jeff Bezos, founder of Amazon (NASDAQ:AMZN) and Blue Origin, and worth more than $190 billion. Blue Origin also seeks to lower space transportation costs through reusable rockets.

As you may have heard, Bezos plans to step down as Amazon’s CEO on July 5. He’ll remain with the company as executive chair of the board, but he wants to devote more time to his other ventures like Blue Origin.

He’s not kidding. Just two weeks after he leaves Amazon, he plans to blast into outer space on one of Blue Origin’s rockets in the company’s first human space flight.

He will be joined by his brother, Mark Bezos, and four other passengers on a short trip to the edge of outer space. One of those seats will go to the highest bidder in a live online auction happening this Saturday. Registration to bid closed at 5 p.m. today… with the current high bid so far at $4 million.

There are reports circulating that Richard Branson may try to fly aboard VSS Unity before Bezos rockets into space. I don’t know if that will happen or not, but it shows you how intensely competitive these brilliant billionaires are as they try to conquer space travel.

Why would they want to do that?

Why would these three of the richest and most successful people on this planet devote time, energy, and money to outer space?

A few reasons…

A passion for entrepreneurship and innovation.

The drive to succeed.

Prestige (and ego).

Oh… and money.

We are now in a new space race, and the resulting space economy is going to be big. By the end of the Roaring 2020s, Bank of America predicts the space industry will more than triple from today’s value to $1.4 trillion.

To put that number into perspective, the global tourism economy was worth $1.5 trillion before the pandemic.

I think it’s time for smart investors to get in position to grab their share of this wealth. That’s why I have educated my Investment Opportunities readers on this about-to-boom space economy and started our Space: The Final Frontier portfolio.

The key that opens up this opportunity is a recent gamechanger in space exploration — reusable rockets.

Up until now, rockets were a one-and-done proposition. At billions of dollars per unit, you can see why missions were few and far between.

Reusable rockets have already lowered the cost to launch a satellite into orbit by 70% — from $200 million to about $60 million. Costs should continue to decline and could be as little as $500,000 in the future.

Lots of people, including some of the smartest and wealthiest people in the world, believe that space offers the best investment opportunity of the coming decades.

Count me in. I really do expect this next space boom will see us constructing new worlds in the sky… and create trillions of dollars along the way.

On the date of publication, Matthew McCall did not have (either directly or indirectly) any positions in the securities mentioned in this article. 

Matthew McCall left Wall Street to actually help investors — by getting them into the world’s biggest, most revolutionary trends BEFORE anyone else. Click here to see what Matt has up his sleeve now. 


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