Billionaires Battle as Bezos-Musk Companies Vie for Launch Pad

In a battle of billionaires, space ventures owned by Internet pioneers Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk are relying on prominent former lawmakers as they jockey for control over a historic launch pad at Kennedy Space Center.

The Florida launch pad was mothballed after the U.S. retired its shuttle fleet in 2011 and turned to countries such as Russia to ferry astronauts to the International Space Station. It’s now coveted by Musk’s Space Exploration Technologies Corp., known as SpaceX, and Bezos’s Blue Origin LLC, which are trying to fill the void for the U.S.