Does Virgin Galactic boss go to space? Although it is earlier than Bezos, but the height ...

Forget about the luxurious African safari or the Caribbean trip on a private charter boat. Space is quickly becoming a new destination for the world's richest people. In the next few years, the market size of space tourism is expected to reach billions of dollars.

After years of delays and daunting setbacks, several companies are in different stages of registering passengers, completing test plans, and even training a new generation of astronauts. "Silicon Valley Iron Man" Elon Musk's SpaceX has launched a more powerful rocket. The company has planned private astronaut flights and may send as many as 20 ordinary people into orbit in the next few years. This is more than the number of astronauts during NASA's Gemini program.

The world’s richest man Jeff Bezos (Jeff Bezos)’s Blue Origin (Blue Origin) announced after the 15th test of the autonomously controlled New Shepard spacecraft in April this year that the founder, Bezos, will and His brother Mark Bezos (Mark Bezos), on July 20th, the anniversary of the Apollo 11 moon landing for the first manned space mission. Blue Origin announced on Thursday that Wally Funk, an 82-year-old member of the Mercury 13 Project (Mercury 13), will join the Bezos brothers and the auction winner who paid $28 million for this opportunity. At the same time, it will take the new Shepard suborbital spacecraft for its first manned flight. Currently, the names of the auction winners have not been announced.

However, Blue Origin has not become the first company to send ordinary people into space. Space travel company Virgin Galaxy announced on Thursday that it will conduct a manned test flight on July 11 and send its founder, Sir Richard Branson, into space. Virgin Galactic's mission is called "Unity 22", and Branson's goal is to defeat Bezos and enter space first. Branson said in the statement: "I really believe that space belongs to all of us. After more than 16 years of research, engineering development and testing, Virgin Galactic is at the forefront of the new commercial space industry, which will be open to mankind. Space and change the world forever. I am honored to help validate the journey our astronauts will take in the future and ensure that we provide the unique customer experience that people expect from Virgin Galactic."

This will be Virgin Galactic’s fourth space flight test so far, and it will also be the company’s first manned mission with four crew members. In the space flight test conducted by the company on May 22, there were only two spacecraft onboard. Pilots. Flying with Branson are three Virgin Galactic mission experts, namely Chief Astronaut Instructor Beth Moses, Chief Operations Engineer Colin Bennett and Vice President of Government Affairs. Sirisha Bandla (Sirisha Bandla). Virgin Galactic pilots Dave Mackay and Michael Masucci will pilot the company's VSS Unity spacecraft.

Virgin Galactic said that the company will broadcast the space flight for the first time, and related videos will be available on Twitter, YouTube and Facebook. The company's goal is to start sending paying passengers to the edge of space in early 2022. However, Virgin Galactic only competes with Blue Origin in the field of suborbital space tourism, and Musk’s SpaceX will carry passengers into orbit and travel for longer periods of time, such as to the International Space Station.

Suborbital space tourism

Space tourism is human space travel for the purpose of entertainment. There are currently several different types of space tourism, including orbital, suborbital and lunar tourism. Between 2001 and 2009, seven space tourists made eight space flights on the Russian Soyuz spacecraft, which was flown to the International Space Station by the American company Space Adventures. The announced price was between 20-25 million U.S. dollars per trip. between. Some space tourists have signed contracts with third parties to conduct certain research activities in orbit. By 2007, space tourism was considered one of the earliest markets for commercial aerospace. Space Adventures is currently the only company that sends paying passengers into space.

Russia’s paid flight in the early 2000s was to raise funds for its struggling space program, when NASA banned the practice, saying that space flight was too dangerous to be open to ordinary people. Due to the increase in the crew size of the International Space Station, Russia stopped orbital space tourism in 2010. The orbital tourism flight was originally scheduled to resume in 2015, but the planned flight was postponed indefinitely and has not occurred since 2009. But in 2019, NASA changed its course and opened its doors to the space station, at least for those who can afford it.

Suborbital generally refers to the airspace from 20 kilometers to 100 kilometers above the ground, between the highest flying altitude of existing aircraft and the lowest orbital altitude of satellites. It is also called adjacent space or aerospace transition zone, which roughly includes the atmospheric stratosphere. Regions, mid-atmospheric regions, and partial ionospheric regions. This area does not belong to the category of aviation or spaceflight. The biggest difference between suborbital flight and orbital flight is that suborbital flight cannot circle the earth once. In terms of speed, that is, the initial launch velocity cannot reach the first cosmic velocity necessary to orbit the earth, so the height of the projectile will drop after reaching the highest point, and it will land before revolving back to the launch point. Therefore, the suborbital flight can be regarded as an elliptical orbit near the perigee below the ground, or as a special projectile motion in a non-ideal state.

In October 2004, the spacecraft No. 1 designed by Scaled Composites of the United States was piloted by a pilot and loaded with simulated weights equal to the weight of the two pilots. It was carried into the air by the "White Knight" jet plane and completed. Flying over 100 kilometers above the ground, won the "Ansari X" private spacecraft design award with a prize of up to 10 million US dollars. At that time, some people predicted that mankind was on the verge of a new era: the era of private suborbital spaceflight.

Although both Blue Origin and Virgin Galactic send tourists into suborbital space, the methods are different. Blue Origin uses a rocket to launch the passenger-carrying capsule about 62 miles (about 99.8 kilometers) above the earth. From here, the personnel participating in the space flight will experience a few minutes of weightlessness during the descent. The parachute of the capsule then deployed, allowing a soft landing.

Branson founded Virgin Galactic in 2004 to establish a space tourism business. The company's spacecraft VSS Unity was released from the aircraft carrier and accelerated to more than three times the speed of sound. Then, the VSS Unity spacecraft will stay for a few minutes in microgravity above an altitude of 80 kilometers, and finally, slowly flip and slide back to the earth, landing on the runway. Neither Blue Origin nor Virgin Galactic’s system is fast enough to enter Earth’s orbit, so unlike SpaceX’s Crew Dragon and the Falcon 9 rocket that takes astronauts to the space station, suborbital flight only Can last a few minutes.

If Branson flies before Bezos, there is likely to be a debate about whether he actually reached space. The FAA recognizes 50 miles (approximately 80.4 kilometers) as a space boundary. The Fédération Aéronautique Internationale (the Fédération Aéronautique Internationale) believes that the boundary of space is 100 kilometers (about 62.1 miles), which is the famous Carmen line.

VSS Unity flew 3 times over 50 kilometers, but reportedly could not reach the Carmen line. In comparison, the new Shepard of Blue Origin exceeded 100 kilometers in 12 of 15 flights; the other three flights exceeded 80.4 kilometers.

First launch

As a listed company, Virgin Galactic, which has been engaged in the space tourism business since its establishment in 2004, directly focuses on suborbital tourism. As a private company, Blue Origin is seeking to diversify its business and is beginning to use the heavy launch vehicle it is developing to send payloads into orbit.

Eric Berger, the senior space editor at Ars Technica, said: “Bezos has been engaged in space exploration for 20 years, but he lags behind Branson in time to enter space. Disappointed him. Bezos would think that Branson might want to make money from the space business to expand his Virgin empire rather than promote human development like himself and Musk."

As for Musk, Baig said, “He may think that the game between Branson and Bezos is a juggling.” Musk’s SpaceX has successfully launched more than 100 rockets and sent astronauts into outer space. Musk, who celebrated his 50th birthday at the end of last month, publicly expressed his doubts about Bezos. He once pointed out: “We are more likely to find unicorns dancing in a flame pipe than Bezos’s Blue Origin ship docking with the space station.”

Ashlee Vance, the author of Musk's biography, said: "The relationship between Musk and Bezos is very tense." Bezos's attack on Musk has always been subtle. For example, after Musk finally landed the rocket vertically in 2015, Bezos tweeted: "Welcome to the club." This comment is quite ironic, pointing out that Bezos is the first person. Musk responded on Twitter: "However, it is important to clarify the difference between'space' and'orbit'"-it is clear that SpaceX's rocket has entered orbit, and Blue Origin has only entered space. Vance said, "They don't care about each other. Musk doesn't like Bezos. I think he thinks Bezos is boring."

Now, Branson, who has always liked spectacular sights, is creating a disturbance. Since the beginning of this century, Branson, Musk and Bezos have spent billions of dollars chasing their space dreams. Tesla CEO Musk, who was born in South Africa, wanted to colonize Mars with his SpaceX rocket, and even claimed that he wanted to sleep on this red planet.

Branson has been involved in space games since 2004. Virgin Galactic currently has a waiting list of 650 people, including movie stars such as Leonardo DiCaprio, Rihanna, Katy Perry and Kate Winslet, lining up for space travel. According to reports, each person will pay $250,000 for a two-hour flight in suborbital space for approximately 5 minutes.

For Branson, going to space next month is not only to show Bezos, but also a way to impress consumers. Branson was proud of his adventurer spirit and caused a sensation. If Bezos is seen as the villain in 007 movies, Branson aspires to live like 007. He once drove an amphibious vehicle across the English Channel in a tuxedo; when the Virgin Galactic hangar opened in New Mexico, Branson drank champagne while hoisting the building with ropes; he drove a tank across New York Times Square, launched the ill-fated Virgin Coke.

Industry insiders expect that even if Branson takes the lead in space flight in July, Bezos will only give symbolic praise. "Bezos' attitude will be, 'Congratulations on your flight, but you haven't actually been to space,'" the source said.

According to reports, when one of their opponents publicly succeeded, all three of them were going crazy. "Bezos is very jealous of all the US government contracts that Musk and SpaceX have won. Inwardly, he will feel uneasy," Ars Technica's Baig said. In 2017, after Musk received $1.3 billion in tax deductions for setting up a battery factory in Nevada, Bezos sent an email to key employees: "Why is Musk getting huge incentives from the government? Superpowers, and we don’t?"

At the same time, Branson is “not actually a rocket scientist,” said Rand Simberg, an industry analyst who has dealt with all three companies, “he is a brand owner.” In 2011 Branson tried to buy rocket engines and batteries from SpaceX. Branson invited Musk to dinner and thought he had reached an agreement. But Musk almost ignored the further plea. In 2015, Musk squeezed Branson out of a satellite Internet service agreement with Google executives.

Rob Meyerson is the former president of Blue Origin and is currently the operating partner of C5 Capital Investment. He believes that competition makes them all better. "Very successful people are very competitive - they motivate each other," he said. "SpaceX has a culture of America against the world; this puts a chip on Musk's shoulder while pushing them forward. It also sets the rhythm for Bezos and Branson."