British billionaire Richard Branson rocketed to 53 miles above the Earth on Sunday in a test flight of his privately funded Virgin Galactic space plane. Branson’s trip above the atmosphere came just days before the world’s richest person — Amazon founder Jeff Bezos — is set to fly to the edge of space aboard his self-funded New Shepard rocket. This month Bezos stepped down as Amazon’s CEO, in part to focus on his rocket company, Blue Origin, as it struggles to compete with billionaire Elon Musk’s privately held SpaceX corporation. In response, Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders told The New York Times, “You have the richest guys in the world who are not particularly worried about earth anymore. They’re off in outer space.”