SpaceX's Falcon 9 making history as an orbital rocket to land back on Earth was enough to give the company's CEO Elon Musk heaps of praise.
Well ... from most people, that is. Jeff Bezos, Amazon co-founder and founder of the competitive Blue Origin space exploration company, used SpaceX's accomplishment as an opportunity to jab his fellow billionaire and his efforts.
Bezos took to his Twitter account on Tuesday and offered:
Congrats @SpaceX on landing Falcon's suborbital booster stage. Welcome to the club!
— Jeff Bezos (@JeffBezos) December 22, 2015
If anything, Bezos was returning the favor stemming from the zinger Musk hit him with last month, when Blue Origin became the first private company to successfully land a reusable rocket that's traveled to and from space.
"Getting to space needs ~Mach 3, but GTO orbit requires ~Mach 30," Musk tweeted at the time. "The energy needed is the square, i.e. 9 units for space and 900 for orbit."
He added: "Jeff maybe unaware SpaceX suborbital VTOL flight began 2013. Orbital water landing 2014. Orbital land landing next."
Bezos's retort Tuesday offered a reminder to Musk that Blue Origin beat Space X to the punch, although the Falcon 9 orbital rocket did travel higher up.
In addition, Bezos's jab conveyed the same point that Musk did last month, when he brought up "suborbital."
With two billionaires involved, this gives an entirely new meaning to a space race.
Will Blue Origin or SpaceX make more advances in space during the New Year? Whichever company pulls ahead, there's likely to be no shortage of shade coming from Bezos and Musk anytime soon.
