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The future of space innovation is controlled by companies, former NASA administrator Jim Bridenstine told CNBC on Tuesday, shortly after Jeff Bezos became the second founder of a space company to go into space.

“These commercial entrepreneurs are taking giant strides that will transform humanity and bring more of us into space,” Bridenstine said on Squawk on the Street. “The future will be manned space stations that are commercially owned and operated.”

Bridenstine, who headed the US space agency during the Trump administration, also said that the microgravity environment in space, in which people or objects appear weightless, is an “enormously valuable resource” used in the manufacture of medicines, the manufacture of immunizations , advanced manufacturing, and innovations such as the creation of an artificial human retina for the eyeball.

“There are all kinds of skills you can achieve in microgravity that you can’t do in Earth’s gravity well,” Bridenstine said. “This is having a huge impact on the market and we are only just beginning to understand what they are.”

Bridenstine’s remarks came when Blue Origin launched its first manned spaceflight Tuesday morning with its founder Bezos on board. Nine days ago Richard Branson flew into suborbital space as the first billionaire founder of a space company. He did it on one of his Virgin Galactic spaceships. Elon Musk, the founder of a third commercial space company, SpaceX, has not yet been to space. Musk was also a co-founder of the electric car maker Tesla.

These missions are led by “entrepreneurs who invest their own money. They don’t get billions of dollars from the federal government to develop their product here,” said Bridenstine, currently senior advisor at private equity firm Acorn Growth Companies. “The goal of all of these people is to cut costs and improve access, and really through innovation.”

Bezos, who also founded Amazon, is one of seven billionaires, including Branson and Musk, who usher in a new era in space travel driven mostly by keen investors rather than superpower governments.

Private investments in space companies hit $ 4.5 billion in the second quarter of 2021, according to a report by New York-based Space Capital. This is the strongest quarter for space infrastructure investments, despite the fact that only two space company SPACs have closed during this period.

Bridenstine praised Bezos for funding Blue Origin’s New Glenn – an orbital rocket slated to launch in the fourth quarter of 2022 – and the company’s BE-4 engine, which will power the United Launch Alliance’s Vulcan rocket, to avoid American addiction from Russia to exit space launches.

The next big step in space exploration will be a return to the moon, Bridenstine said on the 52nd anniversary of Apollo 11’s moon landing. He said that Blue Origin’s Blue Moon spacecraft will ultimately bring humans to the lunar surface.

“Space is really big. We’re just scratching the surface,” said Bridenstine.

A mobile Covid-19 vaccination center in front of Bolton City Hall in Bolton, where the number of cases of the Delta variant identified for the first time in India was relatively high.

Peter Byrne | PA pictures | Getty Images

The Delta variant first identified in India now accounts for an estimated 83% of all sequenced Covid-19 cases in the United States, the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said Tuesday.

“This is a dramatic 50% increase in the week of July 3rd,” said CDC Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky during a Senate hearing.

The increase in delta cases leads to more deaths. Covid deaths rose nearly 48% over the past week to an average of 239 per day, she said.

“Every death is tragic and even more heartbreaking when we know that the majority of these deaths could be prevented with a simple, safe, and available vaccine,” she said.

Walensky said nearly two-thirds of counties in the US had less than 40% of their residents vaccinated, “allowing the highly transmissible Delta variant to emerge and spread rapidly.”

The variant is even more contagious than the alpha variant, which was first identified in the UK and has been estimated by health authorities there to be between 43% and 90% more transmissible than the original Covid-19 strain. The delta, discovered in October, has spread to more than 100 countries, according to the World Health Organization.

“The reason it is so impressive is the fact that it has the ability to transmit from person to person in an extraordinarily efficient manner, far beyond any other variant we have seen before,” Dr. Anthony Fauci, who said the senior medical advisor to the White House during the hearing.

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A United Airlines passenger plane arrives over the apartment buildings to land at Heathrow Airport in west London, UK on March 13, 2020.

Matthew Childs | Reuters

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the State Department said Monday to avoid traveling to the UK as the Delta variant of Covid-19 continues to spread.

The warnings are “Level 4,” the highest from the CDC and the Department of State. While not binding, they come after airline executives and other members of the travel industry urged the Biden administration to relax existing Covid travel restrictions that devastated demand for international bookings.

The United States has banned non-US citizens from the EU, the United Kingdom and other countries from entering the country for much of the coronavirus pandemic, although several European nations recently opened their doors to international visitors. However, Canada said Monday that it will allow fully vaccinated U.S. citizens to enter the country for unnecessary travel starting Aug. 9.

The White House and the British Embassy in Washington did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The CDC said if people have to travel to the UK they should be fully vaccinated against Covid. Meanwhile, England lifted remaining Covid-19 restrictions on Monday, allowing indoor gatherings and nightclubs to reopen.

However, Covid infections remain high across the UK, according to a CNBC analysis of the data compiled by Johns Hopkins University. 316,691 cases have been reported in the past seven days, an increase of about 43% over the previous seven-day period.

U.S. airline stocks fell sharply on Monday as an increasing number of Covid cases raised concerns about the economic recovery and the potential impact on the recent recovery in travel demand after a slump over the past year.

Covid cases in the US have increased about 66% over the past week to a seven-day average of about 32,300 new cases per day, according to Johns Hopkins data.

A Housing & Development Board (HDB) public housing estate in Singapore.

Wei Leng Tay | Bloomberg | Getty Images

SINGAPORE — Singapore’s government on Tuesday said it will again tighten Covid-19 measures as new cases continue to rise, complicating the country’s reopening plans.

The measures include reintroducing a ban on dining-in, and limiting the maximum number of people allowed to gather from 5 to 2.

Covid-19 cases in Singapore have been on the rise in recent weeks. Multiple clusters have emerged around karaoke lounges as well as wet markets and hawker food centers, raising authorities’ concerns. Health ministry data showed last week, there were 480 community cases, a significant jump from the 19 reported in the previous seven days.

Given the current rate of transmission, cases are expected to rise sharply as more people will likely get infected.

“This is very concerning, as it can affect many people in our community all over the island,” Singapore’s Ministry of Health said in a statement.

“As we continue to conduct extensive testing for individuals exposed to the risk of infection, we can expect case numbers to increase in the coming days,” it added.

Between July 12 and July 18, there was an average of 46 community cases detected per day — the highest number of cases detected since April 2020, the health ministry said Tuesday.

The latest restrictions will go into effect from Thursday, July 22 through to Aug. 18.

What are the latest measures?

Restrictions that will be re-imposed include:

• The number of people allowed to gather would be reduced from 5 persons to a maximum of 2 persons.
• Households will be allowed to receive only 2 distinct visitors each day, not counting grandparents caring for their grandchildren.
• Dining out will be banned, but restaurants, food courts and hawker centers will be allowed to offer takeaways.
• Strenuous indoor sports and exercise activities, which typically require masks to be removed, will cease.
• Large-scale events including live performances and wedding receptions will be scaled down and pre-event testing will remain an essential measure.
• Work from home remains the default option for most companies.

Tuesday’s measures followed as the city-state reported 172 new cases on Monday, including 163 locally transmitted infections. It was the highest number of daily reported cases since last August.

Majority of those cases were tied to two large clusters — Jurong Fishery Port, where fishmongers collect their stock to sell at markets and food centers, and the so-called KTV lounges, or karaoke bars — which involve customers socializing with hostesses.

Jurong Fishery Port is closed until the end of the month to try and break the chain of transmission, while workers there have been placed under quarantine.

Singapore banned nightclubs, bars and KTV lounges from operating since last year because activities on the premises are seen as high risk. Some of those establishments, however, continued operating as food and beverage outlets. A number of them are suspected to have breached Covid-19 rules by providing hostess services.