In the last few weeks, we have seen Virgin Galactic CEO, Richard Branson and Amazon's CEO Jeff Bezos venture into space using their own rockets. Virgin Galactic is an American spaceflight company that looks to offer flights to space to anyone who can afford it via a supersonic plane. The VSS Unity flew 57 miles vertically into space which is considered to be the boundary between Earth's atmosphere and outer space. Branson did not go alone on the flight, taking Virgin Galactic employees Beth Moses, Colin Bennett, Sirisha Bandla and pilots Dave Mackay and Michael Masucci with him. Passengers were able to enjoy panoramic views of the Earth's atmosphere before descending back to Earth. The event marked the first time that a commercial plane had entered space. Jeff Bezos has recently stepped down from his role as Amazon CEO to take over operations at Blue Origin. BlueOrigin's flight NewShepard launches like a traditional rocket unlike Virgin Galactic's supersonic plane. BlueOrigin's flight was longer than Virgin Galactic's, lasting approximately 11 minutes. On board alongside Bezos was his brother Mark Bezos, as well as Wally Funk (a 82-year old female aviator), and Oliver Daemen who is a physics student. The rocket also took the crew past the Kármán line which is the boundary between Earth's atmosphere and outer space. The key difference between the two space launches was that Virgin Galactic vehicles descended onto a runway as opposed to touching down in a desert. With the first few passenger spaceflights having successfully completed their respective missions, the real question becomes whether or not space tourism can lift off once again.
The cost of flying into space is quite expensive to say the least with tickets starting at $250,000. The idea of space tourism is a very exciting concept when you look at the possibility of being weightless. Despite the hefty price tag, space tourism will likely draw interest from a wide variety of people. To understand whether space tourism has a future, we must look at its beginnings. Dennis Tito's 2001 flight marked a new era in space travel as he became the first person to fly into space, arriving at the International Space Station through a Russian Soyuz rocket. The difference in his case was that there was no sole company that he purchased a ticket with in order to make his way into space, instead he had to fund it himself. Space tourism will be only available at a high economic level but will slowly become more accessible to the general public. A reason why space tourism has only recently started its debut with companies such as Virgin Galactic, Blue Origin, and SpaceX is because of the public's safety fears. They wonder if the companies mentioned will be able to keep a good safety record to ensure passengers that they will not experience local turbulence. For now it seems like space tourism is a new industry that has a high amount of potential for the future.
Sources:
https://www.barrons.com/
https://www.npr.org/2021/07/
https://www.cnn.com/travel/
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