Blue Origin flight, in New Shepard rocket delivered on 20 Julylike Virgin Galactic, it will be suborbital, but it will take off on its own (without the use of a mother plane, as in the case of SpaceShipTwo). In addition, the spacecraft will be fully automated (without a pilot), and this will be the company’s first launch with people on board, similar to the experience of Richard Branson, allowing space tourists to see the curvature of the Earth and can experience weightlessness.
Jeff Bezos will be accompanied on the trip by his brother Mark Bezos Wally Funk, 82 year old woman who was denied an opportunity to become an astronaut in the 1960s because she is a woman, and the man whose identity was not disclosed who won the auction in which she paid $ 28 million to participate in this Blue Origin adventure. It is also a suborbital voyage, but it must go beyond Richard Branson and is expected to reach an altitude of 100 kilometers.
In this space race there still remains SpacexElon Musk, the founder of Tesla, whose rockets have already delivered astronauts to the International Space Station, and who plans to start bringing tourists into space soon, from August to September.
Thanks to these advances, space tourism is becoming a reality, although it remains accessible only to those with tens of thousands of dollars to pay for the experience. If Branson, Bezos and Musk succeed, the number of suborbital flights with passengers is expected to continue to grow. And Virgin Galactic predicts the following will be automated without a pilot being present. Which, admits Rui Moura, who, in addition to being a geophysicist, works as an airplane pilot in his spare time, raises some concerns.
“For those who are not accustomed to flying this type of aircraft, the sensation can lead to blockage or shock to people. And if there is no one to deal with the situation, people can panic, ”warns a professor at the Geophysical Institute and Faculty of Science at the University of Porto. Virgin Galactics’ stake, as well as other companies competing in this area, is to invest in pre-travel training so that everything works safely and when they need to, they can remove their seat belts and return to their seats when they see the view. …
Paulo Hill notes that the more flights will be made, the less risks will be in the future, as deficiencies can be gradually corrected. However, there is always the risk that an accident could occur during one of these trips with space tourists who paid thousands of dollars to be there, which could have serious consequences.
“Obviously, the first one to fail and kill people can also kill the market.… The risk is not very high because people want to minimize this risk, but there is always a risk, ”emphasizes the professor of applied mechanics and aerospace at the Instituto Superior Técnico.
Space tourism is still in its infancy, but many questions will start to arise in the near future, namely passenger insurance, as noted Reuters… Are insurance companies ready to enter this business? How long does it take for suborbital travel to be as risky as traveling by plane? Richard Branson and his team’s trip this Sunday to test the “customer experience” will mark a new stage in the search for answers. The billionaire space race continues.
