Bezos’ space company Blue Origin started at about the same time as Musk’s SpaceX but since then Musk’s firm has launched more than 400 of its Falcon 9 rockets into orbit and is testing out its giant Starship rocket which it hopes will send astronauts to the Moon and one day possibly on to Mars.

Amazon’s Jeff Bezos founded the company 25 years ago. He took part in Monday’s countdown from Mission Control, located at the rocket factory just outside the gates of NASA’s Kennedy Space Center about 50 miles east of Orlando, Florida. No matter what happens, Bezos said Sunday evening, “we’re going to pick ourselves up and keep going.”