AVweb Credit: New York Times What a country, right? In 1960, we were locked toe-to-toe with the Ruskies over who would seize the high ground of space and then the Moon. Sixty years later, three billionaires are checkbook-to-checkbook to see who gets to claim astronaut firsties. And it looks like Amazon impresario Jeff Bezos won’t be the guy.* The cheeky Richard Branson, whose net worth is a measly 3 percent of Bezos’ towering fortune, is currently scheduled to go first on July 11 th, nine days ahead of Bezos’ launch on July 20 th. And thus begins—at least in theory—the age of accessible space tourism. “Accessible” applies here because you’ll recall that another American billionaire named Dennis Tito was the first space tourist, having been launched by those pesky Ruskies in 2001 for a seven-day mission to the International Space Station which still had that new car smell back then. He reportedly paid $20 million for the privilege and was rewarded with 190 hours in space and 128 orbits. Tito was Yuri Gagarin to Branson’s (and Bezos’) Alan Shepard.