After raising $1.4 billion.

Long ago, the writer Edward Albee wrote: “Good, better, best, bested.”

On a long enough timeline, this might reflect the experience of every major space firm.

Since the federal government ruled in favor of NASA’s decision to opt for SpaceX’s bid to design and deploy a Human Landing System (HLS) to the moon, it’s seemed like Elon Musk and his firm will have the lion’s share of public-private collaborations for lunar missions, and beyond. But in the coming decade, contestants for this role are lining up.

Beyond Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin, which lost a lawsuit against NASA regarding Musk’s contract with the agency, there are other aerospace firms with their eyes on the prize. And one of them, called Sierra Space, just took a major leap toward a rivaling position in Space Race 2.0, raising $1.4 billion to, among other things, modify its Dream Catcher space vehicle for human crews, with aims to land on Mars, and “enable humanity to build and sustain thriving civilizations beyond Earth,” said Sierra Space CEO Tom Vice, in a press release from his company.

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