Most kids dream of becoming an astronaut but drop the idea in their teenage years. Some industry leaders don’t give up quite so easily. Three billionaires, Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos and Sir Richard Branson, are putting their cash on the line to further space exploration. The reasons may vary, but the goal is common – to make commercial space exploration feasible.

Some may believe that these billionaires are out of touch from reality. But Jeff Bezos likens commercial space quest to the advent of personal computers. Once thought of as an outlandish concept in the 1970s, now four decades later, everyone carries a pocket-size personal computer – a mobile phone.

So could space exploration be experienced soon? The race to make space reality is imminent.

Let’s take a look at three space programs and the lessons that can be gleaned:

Big name space programs

Jeff Bezos – Blue Origin

• Founded in 2000
• Goal:  Blue Origin is mostly interested in conducting suborbital flights for tourists.
• Wins:
  • Blue Origin has launched and landed same rocket, New Shepherd, 5 times. These flights travelled only 60 miles from Earth.
  • NASA awarded Blue Origin a contract to launch planetary, Earth observation, exploration, and scientific satellites for the agency aboard New Glenn.
  • Next: The National Team comprised of  Blue Origin, Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, and Draper submitted a Moon proposal to NASA to land first woman and second man on the moon. 

Elon Musk – Space X

• Founded in 2001 (Two years before Tesla).
• Elon served as CEO and CTO.
• Goal: The company aims to bring down the cost of spaceflight by reusing rockets. 
  • Win: In 2006, NASA awarded the first contract to SpaceX.
• One of its rockets destroyed $200 million communications satellite that Facebook was planning to use to expand to Africa.

Sir Richard Branson – Virgin Galactic

• Founded in 2004
• Goal: Virgin Galactic is focused on taking tourists to space.
• Strategy: Wants to fly reusable space plane, called SpaceShipTwo. It takes off just like an aeroplane, but faster.
• Virgin Galactic has already started selling tickets – celebrities like Justin Bieber and Ashton Kutcher have signed up.

Entrepreneurial lessons 

1. Know if it’s a passion project or a business 

• Know if your passion can be a viable business
• These billionaires built their business first then focused on their passions after.
• If you’re passionate but don’t have the skills, should you delegate?

2. When someone says it won’t work, prove them wrong.

• The most successful businesses have an idea for the future that’s very different from the present. 
• Jeff Bezos compares commercial space exploration to the advent of personal computer = people thought it was crazy at first.
• This could pave the way for other entrepreneurs.

3. When you’re building rockets, you solve one problem at a time, but it’s still progress. 

For industry leaders and would-be world-changers, the new challenge is uncovering the mysteries of space and paving a galactic future for humans. Coming up top on Earth is last year’s news. Coming out of Earth is the new frontier.

In the latest LinkedIn Live Level Up TV episode, Michael Lane and Ahmad Imam discuss the entrepreneurial lessons in greater detail. Watch here