American businessman Jeff Bezos poses with the other passengers New Shepard’s first crewed flight to space. From left to right: Mark Bezos, American executive; Jeff Bezos, founder of Blue Origin; Oliver Daemen, Dutch physics student; and Wally Funk, American pilot and aviation expert. Credit: © Blue Origin

The world’s richest man, his brother, an 82-year old woman, and a physics student sealed themselves up in a tiny capsule and flew into space. This might sound like the setup of a joke, but that’s what happened today. American businessman Jeff Bezos flew to space with three companions in the first crewed flight of the New Shepard rocket, developed by Bezos’s aerospace company Blue Origin. Their flight came exactly 52 years after the Apollo 11 moon landing.

The New Shepard rocket takes off on July 20 carrying its first group of passengers. Both the booster and the capsule landed back near the launch pad about 10 minutes later.
Credit: © Blue Origin

The rocket, a small reusable booster and capsule called New Shepard, took off this morning from Texas. New Shepard is named after Alan Shepard, the first American to reach space. The rocket rose more than 100 miles (61 kilometers) straight into the air. The booster separated from the capsule and landed using its engines. The capsule floated back down to the ground on parachutes. The whole flight lasted about 10 minutes. Along for the ride were Bezos’ brother Mark, the American aerospace pioneer Mary Wallace “Wally” Funk, and 18-year-old physics student Oliver Daemen.

Bezos, who made billions from his online shopping company Amazon, founded Blue Origin in 2000. The company spent years developing and testing the New Shepard rocket. In 2015 a New Shepard rocket reached the edge of space and then returned safely to Earth, landing vertically. It was the first rocket to do so, narrowly beating the first successful landing of SpaceX’s much larger Falcon 9 by less than a month.

The participants of the New Shepard flight set multiple records. But Bezos lost out on his own record, however. Until a couple of weeks ago, it appeared that he was going to be the first mogul to fly to space aboard his own spacecraft. But that honor instead went to the British businessman Richard Branson, who flew on a spaceplane of his own space tourism company. The July 11 mission was originally scheduled to be a test flight, but Branson added himself to the manifest after Blue Origin announced Bezos’s flight.

Wally Funk trained as an astronaut in the 1960’s. She was part of a privately-funded program that subjected women to the same testing and training as the men who became part of the United States’ Mercury Program. Although these women, later known as the Mercury 13, were not permitted to become astronauts, Funk never quit on her dream of going to space. Earlier this year, Bezos surprised Funk with a seat on the inaugural crewed flight. At 82, she became the oldest person to go to space. She surpassed the American astronaut and senator John Glenn, who returned to space in 1998 at the age of 77 aboard the space shuttle.

Oliver Daemen became the youngest person to go to space. He surpassed the American astronaut Sally Ride, who was 32 when she flew aboard the space shuttle Challenger in 1983. Daemen also became the first paying space tourist to fly aboard a privately-developed spacecraft. A handful of tourists have gone to space already. But all of these were aboard Soyuz rockets developed and launched by the Russian government. Only Virgin Galactic employees flew aboard Branson’s flight.

This fourth seat was highlighted by profligate spending, mystery, and intrigue. Blue Origin put up the seat for auction, with the money being donated to the company’s charity. An anonymous bidder paid $28 million for the seat. But last week, the company announced that the bidder had a scheduling conflict and would go on a later flight instead. Blue Origin offered the seat to Dutch investor Joes Daemen, who had purchased a seat for a later Blue Origin flight. He gave the seat to his son, Oliver.

Blue Origin will start offering rides to other paying customers soon. Although the Billionaire’s Space Race is over, the battle for control of the space tourism market is just beginning.

British businessman Richard Branson poses in front of the spaceplane VSS Unity with the other missions specialists of Virgin Galactic’s Unity-22 mission. The glass-paneled terminal of Spaceport America is visible in the background. From left to right: Beth Moses, Chief Astronaut Instructor; Branson; Sirisha Bandla, Vice President of Government Affairs and Research Operations; Colin Bennett, Lead Operations Engineer.
Credit: © Virgin Galactic

After years of delay, the age of space tourism may finally be upon us. On Sunday morning, the British businessman Richard Branson flew aboard his company Virgin Galactic’s spaceplane in a suborbital flight. Soon, paying customers will get their turn to go to space.

Branson rode with five other members of his company on VSS Unity.VSS Unity is a SpaceShipTwo model spaceplane. A special aircraft called a WhiteKnightTwo takes off from a runway carrying a SpaceShipTwo. A WhiteKnightTwo named VMS Eve took off from Spaceport America in New Mexico and carried VSS Unity up above 45,0000 feet (14,000 meters). After Eve released Unity, pilots ignited a rocket engine and the craft soared up to 300,000 feet (90,000 meters). After a few minutes of weightless freefall, Unity glided back down to Earth. The whole flight lasted about 90 minutes.

Branson and the other mission specialists float around the cabin of VSS Unity during the spaceplane’s July 10 flight.
Credit: © Virgin Galactic

Branson has always relished spectacle, and Sunday’s flight was no different. Virgin Galactic’s live stream of the event was hosted by the American comedian Stephen Colbert. The landing featured the debut performance of “New Normal”, a new song by American singer Khalid. South-African-born entrepreneur and fellow space baron Elon Musk (founder of SpaceX) was among the well-wishers at Spaceport America.

Branson’s flight is a hopeful milestone on Virgin Galactic’s long, fraught road toward commercial operations. Branson founded the company in 2004. He licensed the technology of the American aerospace company Scaled Composites, which won the Ansari X Prize that year for developing a rapidly reusable launch vehicle. Virgin Galactic unveiled SpaceShipTwo in 2006. But the next year, an explosion during a ground test killed three Scaled Composites employees and injured three others. In 2014, a SpaceShipTwo named VSS Enterprise broke apart during a test flight. The pilot was killed and the copilot seriously injured. Despite these setbacks, Virgin Galactic forged ahead. Unity was completed in 2016 and underwent several test flights prior to its mission Sunday.

Space tourism existed long before Unity’s flight on Sunday. In 2001, the American investment consultant Dennis Tito became the first space tourist, visiting the International Space Station (ISS) aboard a Russian Soyuz craft. Over the next several years, a handful of space tourists made similar trips. But they all paid tens of millions of dollars to buy extra seats aboard government-funded spacecraft.

Until about a week ago, it appeared that American businessman Jeff Bezos, not Branson, was going to be the first mogul to fly to space aboard his own spacecraft. Bezos, who made billions from his online shopping company Amazon, founded an aerospace company called Blue Origin in 2000. Bezos is scheduled to launch aboard his company’s reusable New Glenn rocket on July 20. Although Branson denied the existence of a race between the two, he added himself to Sunday’s flight, which was originally scheduled as a test flight, after Blue Origin’s announcement.

Virgin Galactic plans to hold two more test flights before starting paying trips, probably sometime in 2022. Then, it will begin scheduling rides for the 600 people who purchased tickets.

Space tourism will still be for the very wealthy. Virgin Galactic was selling tickets for $250,000 apiece before it paused ticket sales after the 2014 accident. Blue Origin has not yet begun selling tickets, but they are expected to be within the same range. So, if you’d like to go to space, save your pennies!

October 28, 2016

Last month, two American space companies outlined ambitious plans to carry people into orbit and beyond. These companies are Blue Origin, founded by American entrepreneur Jeff Bezos, and Space Exploration Technologies Corporation (known as SpaceX), created by South African-born American businessman Elon Musk. The two companies, which were the first to successfully land rocket boosters after launch, represent the two giants of “new space,” private startups that are bringing new ideas to spaceflight.

A Blue Origin New Shepard rocket takes off from a launch pad near Van Horn, Texas, in October 2016. Credit: Blue Origin

In September, Blue Origin unveiled the New Glenn rocket, named for the first U.S. astronaut to orbit Earth, John Glenn. The rocket would be almost as large as the Saturn 5 rockets that took Apollo astronauts to the moon, and it would be larger than SpaceX’s upcoming Falcon Heavy rocket. Many of the New Glenn’s parts will be reusable. The rocket will deliver satellites and tourists to Earth orbit and possibly beyond.

Shortly after news of the New Glenn rocket came out, SpaceX’s Elon Musk detailed his incredible vision to colonize Mars. In his “Interplanetary Transport System,” an enormous colony ship would be launched into orbit by the largest booster ever created. Then, the booster would land, refuel, and launch a tanker craft into orbit to rendezvous with and refuel the colony ship. After refueling, the colony ship would pull out of Earth orbit and head to Mars. Musk estimated that each ship would host up to 100 colonists, who would pay for the honor of living the rest of their lives (most likely) on Mars. To put this in perspective, the most people carried into space at one time is 8, aboard a space shuttle, and fewer than 600 people have ever been to space at all. Musk envisions using multiple launches to establish a functional Martian colony of at least 1 million people by the end of the 2100’s. It is an ambitious plan, but most experts think that Musk has grossly underestimated the costs and timescales involved in colonizing the Red Planet.

Before these new space companies can achieve their lofty ambitions, they have to focus on present challenges. Just days before Musk’s announcement, one of SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rockets exploded on the launch pad during a test sequence. For all its successful test missions, Blue Origin’s only rocket to date, New Shepard, is a demonstration craft. (It is named for astronaut Alan Shepard, the first American in space.) Bezos’s company expects to take tourists on brief suborbital flights aboard future New Shepards as soon as 2018. Until it can reliably serve paying customers, however, Blue Origin will be thought of in some circles as a billionaire’s expensive hobby.

Another challenge will be funding. The U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) has given contracts to SpaceX to resupply the International Space Station, but NASA has little use for the heavy launchers being developed by these new space companies. NASA is constructing its own large rocket, the non-reusable Space Launch System (SLS), to send probes deep into the solar system and to take astronauts to the moon and Mars aboard the Orion capsule (which is also under development). The SLS is being built largely at the same facilities used to create parts for the old space shuttle program. Because these manufacturing plants are scattered across the country and employ thousands of people, the U. S. Congress has a strong desire to continue the SLS project. Furthermore, NASA Administrator Charles Bolden stated that he’s “not a big fan” of commercial investment in large launch vehicles. Both companies need government contracts and funding to finance their rockets, so they may to look to other countries for financial support.

Many engineering, financial, and political challenges stand in each new space company’s way. But Blue Origin and SpaceX, along with other companies, have demonstrated an ability to approach spaceflight in novel ways in an attempt to drive down costs and increase reliability. If they succeed, space travel may one day become an exciting adventure that many people get to experience.