Space tourism takes off in new ‘giant leap for mankind’
Flights with ‘ordinary’ passengers herald dawn of a new era
Most people can only dream about taking a trip to orbit. Since the dawn of the space age, it’s been an experience reserved for a select few.
But, the last six months have changed the equation. True, most of those who’ve ventured beyond Earth have been billionaires, their celebrity guests or customers paying millions of dollars.
But lower profile trips already completed, and those coming up, indicate the dawning of a new era.
When the Wright brothers made their first powered flight in 1903, no one could have predicted how commonplace commercial aviation would be a hundred years hence.
Space travel is in a similar position today. It is certainly conceivable that it will become so cheap and routine that in far less than a century it will be accessible to many ‘tourists.’
Futurists are having a field day predicting exactly when this will happen.
Before we look at the present and the future, a little history gives us some perspective.
For the vast majority of human spaceflight history, the only ones lucky enough to reach earth orbit and beyond were professional astronauts hired and trained by governments.
This began to change about 20 years ago when the world’s first civilian arrived at the International Space Station.
U.S. millionaire Dennis Tito became the world's first space tourist on April 30, 2001. Tito, then 60, accomplished what was a lifelong dream of his when he arrived at the ISS on a Russian Soyuz rocket. The trip cost him $20 million.
Not everyone has $20 million to spare on a trip to space, however, but if three billionaires currently working on space tourism have anything to do with it – and they most certainly do – you won’t need even a fraction of that amount in the not-too-distant future.
The first billionaire out of the gate on July 1, 2021 was Virgin Group’s Richard Branson who was launched in his Virgin Galactic spacecraft from his 27-square-mile Spaceport America in New Mexico – described by Virgin as “our center of flight operations, and the world’s first purpose-built commercial spaceport.”
While the July 1 launch got global attention because of its celebrity passenger, the “Unity 22” mission was the 22nd flight test for VSS Unity and the company’s fourth crewed spaceflight.
It was, however, the first to carry a full crew of two pilots and four mission specialists in the cabin, including the company’s founder, Sir Richard Branson, who was testing the private astronaut experience.
According to the company, Unity 22 focused on cabin and customer experience objectives, and for the first time Virgin Galactic shared a global livestream of the spaceflight. It was a marketing extravaganza.
Audiences around the world were able to participate virtually in the Unity 22 test flight and see first-hand the experience the firm is creating for future space tourists.
It was “the experience of a lifetime,” Branson said during the live broadcast of the flight. Branson was designated “Astronaut 001” for the Unity 22 mission.
While the flight with Branson aboard was groundbreaking in many ways and certainly achieved its goal of being a major media event, it was followed by an unexpected development.
In an Oct. 14 announcement the company said it is delaying the beginning of its commercial space tourism service to the second half 2022, due to a reorganization of its development and test flight schedule.
The space tourism company instead is working on refurbishing and improving its spacecraft and its carrier aircraft, rather than fly its next spaceflight test, Unity 23.
The process is expected to last eight to 10 months with completion expected between June and August 2022. The plan would delay the Unity 23 flight until at least the third quarter of 2022.
“Following the enhancement period, the company intends to complete the vehicle testing program … before starting commercial flights,” it said in the announcement.
Unexpected delays are nothing new in space exploration, but with the competition heating up, this development has allowed Branson’s competitors to gain a bit of an advantage in the race to send tourists to space.
The second billionaire to ride his own craft into a sub-orbital flight was Amazon founder and owner of Blue Origin, Jeff Bezos, who’s July 20 trip got at least as much attention as Branson’s.
According to its web site Blue Origin’s vision is to enable a future where millions of people are living and working in space for the benefit of Earth.
“In order to preserve Earth, Blue Origin believes that humanity will need to expand, explore, find new energy and material resources, and move industries that stress Earth into space.
“Blue [Origin] is working on this today by developing partially and fully reusable launch vehicles that are safe, low cost and serve the needs of all civil, commercial and defense customers.”
Bezos and three others launched on a suborbital trip aboard Blue Origin's “New Shepard” spacecraft.
It was the first crewed mission of the company's New Shepard vehicle – a landmark moment for the man and the space tourism industry.
The autonomous New Shepard, which consists of a rocket topped by a capsule, lifted off from Blue Origin's Launch Site One near the West Texas town of Van Horn.
The Blue Origin web site article Meet New Shepard fills in some details. “The New Shepard rocket is designed to take passengers into suborbital space inside of a crew capsule,” it says.
The capsule features six large observation windows, one per seat. Perfect for snapping selfies? Perhaps!
“New Shepard is fully reusable and as of June 2021, it has made 15 uncrewed test launches. In November 2015, it was the first reusable rocket to successfully make a soft landing on the ground.”
Named after Mercury astronaut Alan Shepard, the first American to go to space, “New Shepard is a reusable suborbital rocket system designed to take astronauts and research payloads past the Kármán line – the internationally recognized boundary of space (62 miles above sea level).”
The web site is unapologetically promotional, clearly aiming to sell tickets:
“Whether you are an astronaut flying with Blue Origin or sending a payload to space, your 11-minute flight on New Shepard will be the experience of a lifetime,” it says.
After the founder’s widely noted flight in July, Blue Origin again captured the world’s attention when it successfully completed the second human spaceflight on board New Shepard on Oct. 13.
What made this second trip different, however, and a real step forward in space tourism, was the passengers: The flight included four private citizens, Dr. Chris Boshuizen, Glen de Vries, Audrey Powers and William Shatner – famous for his role as Capt. Kirk in the “Star Trek” series.
The flight was dubbed NS-18 – the 18th flight of a New Shepard vehicle overall.
After a 10-minute flight, during which the passengers experienced about four minutes of weightlessness, the capsule safely delivered the crew back to Earth with a parachute-assisted landing near Blue Origin's West Texas facilities.
“That was unlike anything they described," Shatner was heard saying via a radio link as the capsule parachuted back to Earth.
“Everybody in the world needs to do this,” he told Blue Origin founder Bezos after landing. “That was unbelievable.”
Meanwhile, another celebrity entrepreneur, Elon Musk – most famous for his Tesla electric car company – entered the space tourism race on Sept 16 when his SpaceX rocket launched four people into orbit in what was described as the company’s “first-ever tourism mission.”
Two things made the SpaceX launch different from the previous two billionaire trips: it was the only one to actually reach orbit (the other two were sub-orbital), and it was crewed entirely by amateurs. Its celebrity owner was not on board.
This most singular difference from the other SpaceX launches (there have been many) was appropriately captured in the CNN report of the launch.
“A SpaceX rocket soared into orbit Wednesday evening, carrying four people — none of whom are professional astronauts — and kicking off the first-ever mission to Earth's orbit crewed entirely by tourists,” the report said.
The event itself was, like the owner of the company, choreographed for maximum media impact.
“The launch pad at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida was dramatically illuminated with spotlights against the night sky, and when the SpaceX rocket's nine engines fired up just after 8 pm ET it flooded the surrounding wetlands with a blaze of light as it soared into the upper atmosphere and made a dramatic, ghostly light show overhead,” CNN reported.
After reaching orbital speeds — more than 17,000 miles per hour — the capsule carrying the four passengers detached from the rocket and began to maneuver toward its intended orbit.
The team of amateurs aboard included a billionaire who self-funded the mission, Jared Isaacman, and a cancer survivor, a community college teacher and a Lockheed Martin employee.
The crew remained aboard their capsule for three days as it flew through orbit about 360 miles above the Earth before returning for a splashdown landing off the coast of Florida on Sept. 18.
The flight was a remarkable milestone for space tourism in that it was the first crewed mission to orbit with no professional astronauts aboard.
It also marked the debut flight of SpaceX owner Musk's new orbital tourism business – and a leap ahead of competitors likewise offering rides on rocket ships to customers willing and able to pay a small fortune for the privilege.
This mission, however, has been billed as the beginning of a new era of space travel in which average people – rather than government-selected astronauts and the occasional deep-pocketed adventurer – carry the mantle of space exploration.
The SpaceX September mission may have been the first to be ‘crewed’ by amateurs, but it was followed relatively quickly by a second.
On Dec. 11, Jeff Bezos launched the second amateur-only crew aboard Blue Origin’s New Shepard spacecraft, named after Alan Shepard, the United States' first astronaut to fly into space.
It was the third crewed flight for the company and the first group of six to fly together. The entire flight lasted just over 10 minutes from liftoff to touch down, when the New Shepard booster successfully landed upright on a landing pad.
Riding inside a crew capsule on top of the New Shepard rocket, the six-person crew included Laura Shepard Churchley, now the 372nd American to fly into space. Her dad, Alan Shepard, was the first.
The two Shepards' history-making missions were similar and yet the fact that Churchley was able to repeat her father's feat with only a few days of training indicates just how far human spaceflight has come in the past six decades.
Churchley flew as a guest of Blue Origin.
“This was just wonderful. I was trained too well, I knew exactly what was coming,” Churchley told Bezos after landing and exiting the capsule. “I thought about Daddy on coming down and I thought, 'Gosh, he didn't get to enjoy any of what I am getting to enjoy.' He was working, he had to do it himself. I went on it for the ride!”
This is a remarkable moment in the history of spaceflight. As it was so appropriately described by Churchley, we have seen on more than one occasion in just the past six months that space travel has become accessible to amateurs with no experience and very limited – if any – training.
While it is still exorbitantly expensive, it is already conceivable that costs will come down dramatically in the near future.
If the history of commercial aviation is a guide, within a few years trips to obit will become relatively unremarkable, less costly and able to accommodate many more people .
A new era of affordable and accessible space tourism seems to be just over the horizon … if it has not already come into view.
Space tourism takes off in new ‘giant leap for mankind’
My goodness, so fascinating Warren! All this latest space exploration for regular people certainly boggles the mind! Incredible feats achieved by all three!