بِسْمِ اللهِ الرَّحْمٰنِ الرَّحِيْمِ
Billionaires are having a race to ace, but not this time on Earth. It is a space race now. One of the three richest billionaires in the world are determined to achieve it by their respective corporations. Elon Musk with SpaceX, Sir Richard Branson with Virgin Galactic, Jeff Bezos with Amazon. People can say I am hyping it up and there were space race in past but between government. And the most popular among them was the race for the moon between the United States and Soviet Union.
But this time due to Privatization initiatives and these Private corporate entities being so huge in monetary terms that they can fund these projects. And space exploration companies this thing have become possible.
Remembering Past of Space Race
In the past, the base of civilian space flight was laid by Peter Diamandis. During the 1980s, he laid the foundation of an American national student space society. Which is “Students for the Exploration and Development of Space” (SEDS). Later on, Jeff Bezos become the chapter president of it.
The best part of these corporate space explorers is that they have extended the capabilities of going to space also saving taxpayer’s money.
A brief explanation
On July 20, Jeff Bezos with Blue Origin launch went to space, just one week after Richard Branson, the English Business magnate took flight on July 11 in one of the Virgin Galactic flights.
Blue origins in quest of Cost effective space travel
Company Blue Origin become the first of space exploration companies to accomplish a non pilot suborbital flight with civilian crew with paying tourist crew on July 20. Blue Origin is using different methods to create cost-effective space travel. One of them is reusable rockets and for it the company has employed 3,390 people. And Blue Origin historical flight was from near the small town of Van Horn, Texas.
The vehicle used in this historical flight was by the name of “New Shepherd”. It reached the altitude of 65 miles with the speed of 2200 miles per hour. The correct price that would be set is still unknown. But what we know is the price is 29.7 million dollars.
Richard Branson aims to dominate space tourism
Virgin Galactic was founded in 2004 for building commercial spacecraft and being a space tourism company. The best part is it is the first publicly traded space tourism company. It has employed just 823 employees and market Capital of 7.5 Billion dollars. It has a line-up of space planes, but the catch is that all flights are suborbital and briefly crosses the boundary of space.
On July 11, it was not the first manned successful flight, but the first one with the founder and business magnate Richard Branson. Richard Branson space program operations by Virgin Galactic is done by a space plane far different from SpaceX and Blue Origin. Space plane is supported by a rocket, and then it separates from it and uses its own boosters to the space.
The space plane VSS unity climb up to 282,000 feet with the speed of 2435 mph. Branson and his team felt 3 minutes of weightlessness. For a round trip between earth and space, Virgin Galactic price to go to space or Virgin Galactic space tourism cost is 250,000 dollars.
Elon Musk space travel aims to conquest and colonization of Mars
SpaceX, an aerospace company very popular in news about space exploration, is a space transportation services and communications company. Founded by Elon Musk himself in 2002 and currently employees 9,500 to 10,000 people.
Elon Musk space program operations or SpaceX operations have a good history in terms of its feats of innovation and success. Its history of space exploration includes points such as first private company to successfully launch, orbit and recover a spacecraft. First Private entity to reach International Space Station. One of the most innovative things is vertical takeoff and landing orbital rocket.
The companies headquarter is in California, although not publicly traded, its total net worth is 74 billion dollars. SpaceX most recent mission is Crew-1. Partnering with NASA commercial space program. The crew was sent to the International Space Station. The maximum altitude achieved was 285 miles with max speed of 17,500 kilometers.
Space current long term goal is colonization of Mars by sending humans to Mars as by the year 2026. Before it, there would be an unmanned mission to the Mars and for achieving this they are working closely with NASA.
There’s also Sierra Nevada Corp. I guess the CEO is worth “only” 12 billion but their designs are cutting edge and they plan to put up their own space station in 2026.
https://www.sncorp.com/
Yes, there are such innovative companies but owners going to space taking risk to promote there companies is a whole new thing.
If a billionaire junk man from the Jettison Scrap and Salvage Company can do it (back in 1979) then anything is possible. 😉
Unbelievable!
Great advances to be sure. Think what they could achieve if they turned their efforts and fortunes to earthly problems or if they paid their fair share of income tax.
You are right I think we do not have enough resources to live in space permanently. If something happens to earth no people can live in space stations forever and if there are planet like earth we do not have enough resources to reach there any time soon. The best option is to save earth or welcome death as an old friend. Otherwise all are just hope of saving human race or just hype to gain investors.
While some have criticized the “squandering” of resources while earth is in dire straits, I believe that these space ventures will expand knowledge and lead to many innovations useful here on earth. These companies also are employing significant numbers of people, and boosting the economy.
Thank you, Monis, for this very informative post. 🙂
These companies hire few thousands in billions of people. But these space venture also provided us with medical machines through tech innovations. There is Pros and Cons in everything like internet, but we should consider things according to the analysis of circumstances. Consideration of all pros and cons should be necessary.
Thank You for appreciation, these are my motivation.
Spaceship development is on rail, we need that technology;
ISS has its scientific output and legacy for the service years, though the maintenance of this this kind of facility makes less sense as time passing;
I don’t assume space hotels and even billionaire flights to be common due to necessities of technical equipment tasks on the orbits (and they drastically increase);
Some manned flights are necessary, otherwise the last 50 years’ investments will become a waste, and (when?) we will start again in any case.
Travelling to new horizons is an intrinsic human feature.
Humans are the most known inquiring species, that’s why we always look to the stars.
Our accomplishments depend on time scale and current facts. We’ve been looking to make space travel a common thing for ages.
Now it is not possible to think of space travel without environmental, economical, social, psychological, and, of course, technological aspects.
‘Space economy’ development needs space exploration and space travel. Inevitably, humans need to travel. Robots can go further, but personal experience and pushing the limits of physiology is also a research for our bodies and development.
Over a century average IQ increased due to education and technology level. You cannot stop children’s dreams to be a pilot since we have this heritage, personal legacies.
This is the case, when making our boundary more, we find more to be explored and understood.
Accomplishment might be considered in a certain time quantum, but not as any final achievement.
Very informative! And these innovations are truly exceptional. Also if you want to read more about Richard Branson and his quotes then you should definitely check out this https://turtlequote.com/quotes-by-richard-branson/