On July 11th 2021, Sir Richard Branson and his guests launched off to the border of space and returned back, signalling the dawn of a new era of space tourism. Today, on June 20th, Jeff Bezos will travel on a Blue Origins spacecraft to space and back too. Now, you may be asking why these events are important, after all, it’s just some billionaires visiting space. But this is important because this is the first test flight just as tickets are now being sold and since the passengers of both flights are so high profile, it raises a lot of public awareness and hype for more affordable space travel.
So, what is the difference between these two monumental flights? Firstly, there’s the altitude that they’ll be travelling to. Jeff Bezos will travel to the Karman line, which is 62 miles above sea level while Richard Branson will go to the US-recognised boundary of space, which is 55 miles, however, the extra 7 miles makes no difference. Next, they have very different spacecraft and launches, it being the biggest difference. Blue Origin is using its New Shepard rocket to launch a capsule, which will then parachute back into the sea. However, Virgin Galactic’s approach is completely different and quite revolutionary. You see, while Blue Origin is trying a more classic approach with rockets and capsules, Virgin Galactic is using something more akin to planes and the space shuttle. They are using a mothership, VMS Eve, to take the VSS Unity, the spacecraft carrying passengers, to 45,000 ft. At the drop-off altitude, the Unity will be released and will use rockets to go up to 50 miles. Then, it'll flip over to show a better view and proceed to glide back to the ground and land on a runway like a traditional aeroplane. Therefore, Unity is basically a spaceplane, while Blue Origin is still using capsules. Personally, I feel like the VSS Unity would be more comfortable to land in and feel safer since people might be turned off by the prospect of dropping into the ocean instead of landing calmly on a runway, which people are already used to. To be fair to Blue Origin, the entire idea of spaceflights aren’t something people are used to and if capsules are the better option, then people will probably just accept it after a while, just like they got used to aeroplanes.
So, what's next now that both flights have returned successfully? After his flight, Jeff Bezos revealed that Blue Origin had already reached $100 million in private sales, but no information has come out about the price of tickets. Currently, you can put in a deposit of $1000 to reserve a ticket in Virgin Galactic and you can email astronauts@blueorigin.com for information about Blue Origin's tickets. Tickets are estimated to cost $200,000 to $300,000 for Blue Origin and $300,000 to $400,000 for Virgin Galactic, however, both companies want to reduce ticket prices till it becomes accessible to purchase for ordinary people and not just billionaires. The space tourism industry is growing at a rapid pace and UBS reports that it has the potential to be worth 3 billion dollars in just 9 years, so I’m really excited to see where this goes. Maybe one day, a generation will grow up that will be already accustomed to taking flights in space, which is a very exciting prospect.
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