Billionaire Elon Musk makes space travel history: His SpaceX rocket blasts into orbit, launches 11 satellites and makes amazing landing on an X marked back on Earth (12)

'Getting to space needs ~Mach 3, but GTO orbit requires ~Mach 30. The energy needed is the square, i.e. 9 units for space and 900 for orbit,' Musk tweeted.

This means the Amazon founder's rocket would need 100 times more power to become orbital.

In a later conference call with the media, Bezos defended the Blue Origin achievement, highlighting that SpaceX is also making a suborbital flight.

A Blue Origin spokesperson said: 'SpaceX is only trying to recover their first stage booster, which is of course suborbital. The SpaceX first stage does an in-space deceleration burn to make their re-entry more benign.

'If anything, the Blue Origin booster may be the one that flies through the harsher re-entry environment. Finally, the hardest part is probably the final landing segment which is the same for both boosters.'

Until now, Musk has dominated the headlines for his SpaceX test flights – but not always for the right reasons.

Earlier this year, Musk released dramatic footage of the Californian company's third attempt to land a rocket booster on a barge in the Atlantic.

The video, taken from a plane, shows the Falcon 9 booster lowering itself onto the platform, before a gust of wind sways it to one side.

The 14-storey booster manages to hit the barge, but its high speed and tilt causes it to explode on impact.

Landing the rocket upright was always going to be tricky. SpaceX once compared it to balancing a broomstick on your hand.

The Verge points out that the Falcon 9 and New Shephard are completely different vehicles and shouldn't be compared to each other.

The Falcon rocket is designed to launch satellites and cargo into orbit, which is why its so thin and tall.

The shapes creates less drag, allowing it to go deeper into space. But it also makes it much harder to land back on Earth.

SpaceX was originally planning to launch its rocket on Saturday, but Musk similarly tweeted to say the team had been faced with 'engineering challenges.' It will be the first time the rocket (picutred) has flown in the past six months following an explosion in June when carrying supplies to the ISS