The Truth Behind Branson and Bezos Going to Space... (Virgin Galactic and Blue Origin Launches)

So, over the past month, billionaires Jeff Bezos and Sir Richard Branson both independently announced that they themselves would be suiting up, hopping in their respective companies' rockets and launching into space. Jeff Bezos would take to the skies in Blue Origin's New Shepard, while Branson has actually already completed his flight aboard Virgin Galactic's Spaceship 2, called Unity. But with the very real possibility of rockets going boom, it does seem like a fairly high risk to take by these billionaires, especially so early on in the life of these vehicle programs.

So, that begs the question: why did they do it, knowing just how important they are to the ongoing business operations of some of the world's most important companies? Why did they choose to be the people aboard the ship?

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So just yesterday, Richard Branson climbed aboard Virgin Galactic's Unity and experienced about three minutes of weightlessness up in space, along with three other passengers during the Virgin Galactic Unity 22 space flight. The whole event was live streamed on YouTube, where viewers could see a plethora of mini-docs about the program, as well as the very exciting five minutes or so where Spaceship 2 released from White Knight 2, launched the rocket engine, took their passengers up to space, and then started coasting back home. It was very exciting. The launch was a definite success, and now we wait for Jeff Bezos to launch on Blue Origin's rocket, New Shepard, on July 20.

But in this video, I wanted to dig a little bit deeper into this situation from a strategic perspective. Why have Branson and Bezos decided to actually be the people aboard the ship? I mean, they really could send anyone up in those rockets; many people would volunteer. So, why them?

Well, the simple answer is advertising. While Richard Branson and Jeff Bezos have both publicly stated that it is a huge dream of theirs to go to space, we can't look past the fact that these launchers offer a significant opportunity to get eyeballs on their space companies. And in all honesty, it's desperately needed.

This is why, over the past five years or so, a huge trend that we've seen is the privatization of space flight. It's no longer NASA or nothing. We now have companies like Virgin Galactic and Blue Origin, as well as SpaceX, Boeing, Lockheed Martin, and many others, all entering this space.

But here's the thing: Elon Musk's SpaceX is winning by a fairly wide margin right now. So much so that the achievements made by companies like Blue Origin and Virgin Galactic are constantly being overshadowed. So, what does that cause?

Well, firstly, it creates a lot of positive buzz for SpaceX as they continue in their winning ways. But it also means that whenever an article is written about Blue Origin or Virgin Galactic, they always seem like that other gimmicky space company. Because at the end of the day, they always get compared to SpaceX, thus it makes their achievements look a little bit inferior.

Now you might think, you know, who cares about that? I just love seeing all these new innovations, and I love seeing space flight moving forward in a positive direction. However, at the end of the day, these are companies with shareholders, and if the media perception is always slanted against you in favor of the bigger fish, that can start to change public and shareholder perspectives and can start to negatively influence your business.

I mean, despite all the achievements Blue Origin has made in space flight, what you hear in the media is how they haven't yet reached orbit or how they're just trying to be SpaceX copycats. And when it comes to Virgin Galactic, all you hear about is how space tourism is a useless idea for the ultra-rich. Why should we support that?

You may think that negative sentiment in the media doesn't actually matter, but it kind of does. Because if you have investors out there that want to put their money in the best company in the industry, and there's this one company consistently getting high praise while the others kind of get joked about a little bit, then you can bet your bottom dollar that money will flow to the top dog.

And honestly, we've seen this happen. I mean, if we zoom in just on Virgin Galactic, over the past few months, we've seen high-profile investors leaving Arc X, a space exploration ETF offered by ARK Invest, which is of course led by Kathy Wood, has now completely divested from Virgin Galactic. Chamath Palihapitiya recently sold his 213 million dollar stake in the company to go and fund other projects.

And if businesses aren't careful, big-name investors selling out can then lead to more negative press, which can lead to more investors selling out, which can start a bit of a spiral.

So, what Blue Origin and Virgin Galactic really needed was a big media reset button. They need to change the sentiment; they need to be the successful space companies, full of confidence, you know, pushing space exploration forward. When it comes to the media, they need to break out of SpaceX's shadow.

And that's exactly what they're trying to do by having their high-profile founders aboard these launches. By having Branson and Bezos actually flying in their respective rockets, they have that big media reset button they need. And that's going to have two big effects. The first and most obvious is that it gets more eyeballs on their companies, and it gets people talking.

So far, after eight hours, the Virgin Galactic livestream has had 6.4 million views, and I'm sure the Blue Origin launch will do even better than that. Articles on Virgin Galactic are currently plastered all across the front pages of basically every single news site, you know, from CNBC to CNN, the Wall Street Journal, or the New York Times. Pretty much every single news site you log on to right now has the headline, you know, "Richard Branson successfully launches to space aboard Virgin Galactic's Unity rocket."

And that's exactly what they would have been aiming for, because when you get a huge piece of positive news that gets plastered everywhere, literally everywhere, that obviously goes a long, long way to resetting the public perception of your company.

But you know, imagine if Branson wasn't on the flight. Would it have gotten the same buzz? No way! Virgin Galactic had successful flights of this vehicle before, but did you see that plastered across the media? I mean, if you follow the space industry closely, you probably did, but as a member of the general public? Probably not.

To really achieve this advertising effect, you know, Richard Branson had to be on the ship. But beyond the obvious advertising benefits, these launchers also have a huge secondary effect: they show confidence.

You see, Elon Musk says, you know, maybe one day he'll go to Mars, but he's definitely not going to be on the first trip. He's not going up in a SpaceX rocket anytime soon. But Branson went up on Virgin Galactic's rocket, and Bezos is going up in Blue Origin's rocket. This is Branson and Bezos showing investors and showing the world just how confident they are in their companies and the rockets they make.

They're really putting their money where their mouth is because, really, they're putting their lives on the line here. Space flight is definitely not a low-risk activity. So for them to say, you know what, on the first operational crewed flight of my rocket, I'm going, that is a big deal, and it certainly goes a long way to renewing investor confidence in these businesses at a time where, honestly, that was probably fading a little bit.

So beyond the straight-up advertising effects, I think this is actually a really smart move by both Branson and Bezos to show their confidence in these companies and thus boost everybody else's confidence as well.

So overall, those are the reasons that I believe these two billionaires are heading to space. Now, don't get me wrong; I know these guys, they both really want to go to space, but remember, these guys are some of the world's best business people. They know exactly what this would mean for their businesses, and at a time where SpaceX is literally casting a shadow over every single space company out there, yeah, this is a smart move by them.

And honestly, I'm all for it. I really enjoy following the innovations and the achievements in the space industry, and you know, if these publicity stunts get more people interested or more people aware of what's going on, then, you know, I think that's great.

But anyway, guys, that will do us for this video. That is my take on why these two billionaires are actually going up into space on these rockets. Yes, they definitely want to, but there's definitely a little bit of advertising, a little bit of business involved as well.

So overall, guys, I hope you enjoyed the video. I hope you got something out of it. If you did, leave a like on the video; it takes two seconds, and it's the easiest way to support the video in the YouTube algorithm, so I really appreciate it. Subscribe to the channel if you'd like to see more videos similar to this. This one's a little bit different; normally, we're just straight up talking about stock market investing. This one has a little bit of a different spin, but hope you enjoyed it.

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