Earthlings have always looked up to find the diverseness of nature. This intrigued nature has caused humans to access space travel. From the first attempt to reach the Moon to manned space missions, robotic flights from Earth to Mars, and the development of space stations, we never stop. Now the quest to explore the space has reached further. We are looking at the new trend of commercial space flights.
However, this time it is motivated by a rivalry for customers instead of domination by achieving specific goals first. Then who are the major influencers, and how are they going to inspire space exploration’s science?
Space travel has now evolved from just the needs of scientific evidence. The luxury of space travel is not only for government agencies now. Private companies have stepped into the game. We see popular personalities like Elon Must, Jeff Bezos, and Richard Branson taking flights towards space. These are the sign of a new space race that even normal people who have can afford will fulfil their dream to start a journey towards space.
Space tourism is the new type of tourism that once was just a dream but now becoming a reality as companies like SpaceX, Virgin Galactic, and Blue Origin are racing to develop sustainable human space flight solutions for commercial utility.
The three major aims are to lower space access costs – largely by reusing the launch vehicles and space crafts – and let non-astronauts travel to space. The personal passion of their CEOs is one element these firms have in common.
SpaceX – Elon Musk
SpaceX was formed in 2002 by the flamboyant entrepreneur, engineer, investor, and inventor, Elon Musk. SpaceX’s objective is “to revolutionize space technology to enable humanity to live on other worlds.” For this aim, the business has specialized in rocket design, production, and launch, offering fierce competition to Defense Department and NASA’s launching rockets to its United Launch Alliance.
SpaceX has been spectacularly successful in its mission. By manufacturing the Dragon spacecraft and Falcon 9 launch vehicle, it became the first commercial enterprise to dock its spacecraft at the International Space Station in 2012. The company currently runs regularly and carries goods.
However, the Saturn 5 rocket, which launched the Apollo astronauts, was equivalent to the Falcon Heavy and SpaceX built their vehicle to take humans to the Moon in 2018 and Mars in 2023.
The BFR project was announced on 29 September by Musk. This would replace the spaceship Falcon and Dragon – transporting goods and explorers to Mars, Moon and reducing flight times between Earth cities. Elon Musk predicts that flying from London to New York may take as low as 29 minutes.
Blue Origin – Jeff Bezos
Jeff Bezos introduced Blue Origin in 2018; the organization is specified for its commercial use. The main objective is to take non-experienced people on space travel. Blue Origin focuses on commercially accessible, sub-orbital spacecraft — aimed at the space tourism sector.
A vertical launching vehicle was created to reach the altitude at 100 km. The rocket makes its way back to Earth, and the engines shoot to the end of the downhill so that the spaceship lands vertically. Non- passenger test flights have shown the technique successfully. It takes around 10 minutes to get back and forth.
Jeff Bezos himself, along with the three civilian’s crew, took off for the successful test flight. And now aims for official first flight towards the space station. After his successful flight, the chances are that Blue Origins will start commercial flights.
Virgin Galactic – Richard Branson
The pace heightened with the announcement of Jeff Bezos that he will fly out to space on the New Shepard rocket’s first launch. In reply, Richard Branson, Virgin Galactic’s founder, and CEO revealed that he would do his last test trip onboard the VSS Unit. On 11 July, Richard Branson travelled 80 km (50 mi) up to suborbital height on board his Virgin Galactic VSS Unity spaceship and returned to Earth safely.
The initial space race came from visionary theoretical engineers’ ideas and talents. But is it too much to believe that a coming generation of entrepreneurs, such as Bezos, Musk, and Branson, is driving the second space race? In such a case, We can hope that the major element that may be used to pursue space efforts is not ownership of riches but the main factors that drive forward our vision, inventiveness, and desire to make humans better.
International space relations
Today’s space economy is driven by small-scale manufacturing at ISS and satellites that generally focus on surveillance, climate, monitoring, and telecommunications by the coalition of the United States, Russia, Japan, Europe, and about a dozen other Partner Countries.
In this Earth’s orbital ecosystem, China, Japan, and India are all key participants. The Chang Zheng china boosters carry military and commercial communicational satellites and Earth observation satellites to orbit. India’s Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle is also one example of the country-based rockets that have been successfully sent to the Moon and is one of PSLV’s best-known flights.
The multi-national organizations now plan to restart human moon exploration with NASA and its partners ISS countries; it has announced that in 2024 it intends to surface human beings again and offered U.S. business chances to participate. But the United States is not the only lunar explorer. Japan, India, and China have indicated an interest in human moon missions at one point or another.
Author Bios:
Grace Griffin is a member of the writer’s Team on Research prospect. She has bachelor’s in Law, Masters in Literature, and a PhD in Economics. she wanted to explore all the possible subjects in the world. Still, she is afraid that she couldn’t do so. Grace is a technical writer and writes research-based content. As for her hobbies, she loves reading articles, blogs, magazines, newspapers and books.
