6 Billionaires See Space Tourism as Their Next Big Plaything

Billionaires Elon Musk (Tesla Motors), Richard Branson (Virgin Group), Jeff Bezos (Amazon), Paul Allen (Microsoft), Larry Paige (Google), Eric Schmidt (Google), and the less-wealthy multimillionaire Dennis Tito (first space tourist) know something about new frontiers in business, and know they are taking it to the next level.

Separately, with their respective successor companies, SpaceX, Virgin Galactic, Blue Origin, Scaled Composites, Planetary Resources, and the Inspiration Mars Foundation, they are involved in varied aspects of the space business ranging from cargo-hauling and asteroid mining to Mars exploration and sub-orbital flights.

It remains to be seen to what degree these ventures will get off the ground -- and some already have -- and whether it is wiser in the very long run to get involved in the consumer or business to business side of space adventure.

Clearly, these billionaires are benefiting from the privatization of the space business, although some of the enterprises are very much public-private partnerships.

Bloomberg caught up with these mega-wealthy space entrepreneurs to hear more about their visions, and here's the video: