Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos are in a two-man space race – who will win?

The stairway to the heavens starts in Texas. In 2003, a young Elon Musk was scouting for a suitable location to fulfil his dream of becoming a space pioneer. A year earlier, he had started Space Exploration Technologies Corp – SpaceX for short – with the aim of building rockets and one day sending humans to the moon, or even Mars.

First, though, he had to find somewhere to carry out the noisy and dangerous job of rocket testing. The wide open spaces of freewheeling Texas, where folk are more relaxed about firearms and explosives, provided the perfect solution. There, amid the rattlesnakes and fire ants and searing heat, Musk set to work.

At the same time, 800km across the state, another American entrepreneur was looking for a place to indulge his own space-flight ambitions.

Unlike Musk, Bezos was shy about his plans, and when the helicopter taking him to visit potential sites crash-landed, it was as much a setback because of the publicity as for the damage. A shaken Bezos walked away from the wreck with only minor injuries, explaining that he was looking for a ranch. Few suspected when he bought thousands of empty acres in 2004 that he was more interested in rockets than rodeos.

So began the modern space race – not a battle between rival nations, or political doctrines. Not even a battle between competing technologies. Instead, a trial of strength between two science-fiction-obsessed billionaires who had bought everything money can buy on Earth and were now striving for infinity and beyond.