Tencent Science and Technology News, July 2 news, forget the luxury African safari or private charter trip to the Caribbean. Space is rapidly becoming a new destination for the world's rich. 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 at different stages of registering passengers, completing test plans and even training a new generation of astronauts. The SpaceX of Silicon Valley Iron Man Elon Musk (Elon Musk) has launched more powerful rockets. The company has included private astronaut flights in its plans and could put 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.

Jeff Bezos's Blue Origin, the world's richest man, announced after his 15th test of the self-controlled New Shepard spacecraft in April that founder Bezos would join his brother Mark Bezos on the first manned space mission on the anniversary of the Apollo 11 moon landing on July 20. Wally Funk, an 82-year-old member of Mercury 13, will make his first manned flight aboard the New Shepard suborbital spacecraft, along with the Bezos brothers and the winner of the $28 million auction for the opportunity, Blue Origin announced on Thursday. At present, the name of the winner of the auction has not been announced.

But Blue Origin has not become the first company to send ordinary people into space. Virgin Galaxy, the space travel company, announced on Thursday that it was scheduled to conduct a manned test flight on July 11 and send its founder, Sir Richard Sir Richard Branson, into space. Virgin Galactic's mission is called Unity 22, and Branson's goal is to defeat Bezos and be the first to go into space. "I really believe that space belongs to all of us," Branson said in a statement. After more than 16 years of research, engineering development and testing, Virgin Galaxy is at the forefront of the new commercial space industry, which will open space to mankind 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 the company's first manned mission with four crew members. In the space flight test conducted by Virgin Galaxy on May 22, there were only two pilots on board. Branson was accompanied by three Virgin Galactic mission experts, chief astronaut coach Beth Moses (Beth Moses), chief operating engineer Colin Bennett (Colin Bennett) and vice president of government affairs Cyrissa Bandra (Sirisha Bandla). Virgin Galactic pilots Dave Dave Mackay and Michael Michael Masucci will fly the company's VSS Unity spacecraft.

Virgin Galactic said it would broadcast the space flight live for the first time, and videos would be provided on Twitter, YouTube and Facebook Inc. The company aims to send paying passengers to the edge of space by early 2022. But Virgin Galactic only competes with Blue Origin in suborbital space tourism, while Musk's SpaceX will take passengers into orbit and make longer trips, such as to the International Space Station.

Suborbital space tourism

Space tourism is human space travel for the purpose of entertainment. There are several different types of space tourism, including orbital, suborbital and lunar tourism. Between 2001 and 2009, seven space tourists made eight flights aboard the Russian Soyuz spaceship, which was flown to the International Space Station by the US company Space Adventures, with an announced price of between $2000 and $25 million per trip. Some space tourists have signed contracts with third parties to carry out certain research activities in orbit. By 2007, space tourism was considered to be one of the earliest markets for commercial aerospace. Space Adventures is currently the only company to send paying passengers into space.

Russia's paid flight in the early 2000s was to raise money for its struggling space program, when NASA banned it, saying space flight was too dangerous to be open to ordinary people. Russia stopped orbital space tourism in 2010 due to the increase in the number of passengers on the International Space Station. Orbital tourism flights were originally scheduled to resume in 2015, but the planned flights were postponed indefinitely and have not occurred since 2009. But in 2019, NASA changed course and opened its doors to the space station, at least for those who could afford it.

Suborbit generally refers to the airspace 20 km to 100 km above the ground, between the highest flight altitude of existing aircraft and the lowest orbital altitude of satellites, also known as near space or space transition zone. it roughly includes the stratosphere region, the mesosphere region and part of the ionosphere region. This area does not belong to either aviation or aerospace. 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 velocity of launch does not reach the first cosmic speed necessary to orbit the earth, so the height of the projectile will continue to drop after reaching the highest point and will land before circling back to the point of emission. Therefore, suborbital flight can be regarded as an elliptical orbit near perigee below the ground, or as a special projectile motion in a non-ideal state.

In October 2004, the spaceship 1 designed by the Scaled Composites Company of the United States, which was piloted by a pilot and loaded with simulated weights equal to the weight of the two pilots, was lifted off by a "White Knight" jet and completed a flight more than 100km above the ground, thus winning the "Ansari X" private spaceship design award of up to US $10 million. At that time, it was predicted that mankind was on the brink of a new era: the era of private suborbital spaceflight.

In different ways

Although both Blue Origin and Virgin Galaxy send tourists into suborbital space, they do so in different ways. Blue Origin uses rockets to launch a passenger capsule about 62 miles above the earth. From here on, people participating in space flights will experience weightlessness for a few minutes as they descend. The parachute of the capsule then unfolded, allowing a soft landing.

Branson founded Virgin Galactic in 2004 to build a space tourism business. The company's spaceship VSS Unity was released from the aircraft's mother ship and accelerated to more than three times the speed of sound. The VSS Unity spacecraft then stays in microgravity at an altitude of more than 80 kilometers for a few minutes before slowly flipping and taxiing back to Earth and landing on the runway. Neither the Blue Origin nor Virgin Galactic's system is fast enough to enter Earth orbit, so unlike SpaceX's Crew Dragon and the Falcon 9 rocket that took astronauts to the space station, suborbital flights last only a few minutes.

If Branson flies before Bezos, there is likely to be a debate about whether he actually reaches space. The FAA recognizes 50 miles (80.4 kilometers) as the boundary of space. The the F é d é ration A é ronautique Internationale believes that the boundary of space is at 100km (62.1miles), which is the famous Carmen line.

VSS Unity flew three times over 50km, but was reportedly unable to reach the Carmen line. By comparison, the new Shepard of blue origin has flown more than 100 kilometers in 12 of 15 flights; the other three have flown more than 80.4 kilometers.

Preemptive launch

As a listed company, Virgin Galactic, which has been engaged in space tourism since its inception in 2004, focuses directly on suborbital tourism. As a private company, Blue Origin is seeking to diversify its business and is starting to put payloads into orbit with heavy carrier rockets it is developing.

Eric Berger, senior space editor at Ars Technica, said: "Bezos has been engaged in space exploration for 20 years, but he is so disappointed that he lags behind Branson in terms of time to go into space. Bezos would think that Branson might want to make money from the space business to expand his Virgin empire-rather than promoting human development, as he and Musk did. "

As for Musk, Baig said, "he may think Branson's game against Bezos is a juggling game." 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 the flame pipe than Bezos's Blue Origin docking with the space station." "

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

Now Branson, who has always loved spectacles, is creating a distraction. Since the beginning of this century, Branson, Musk and Bezos have spent billions of dollars chasing their space dreams. Musk, chief executive of Tesla, Inc., who was born in South Africa, wants to colonize Mars with his SpaceX rocket and even claims that he wants to rest on the red planet.

Branson has been involved in space games since 2004. Virgin Galactic currently has a waiting list of 650 people, including Leonardo DiCaprio, Rihanna, Katy Perry and Kate Winslet, waiting in line for space travel. It is reported that each person will pay $250000 for a two-hour flight in suborbital space for about five minutes.

For Branson, going to space next month is not just 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 of James Bond movies, Branson aspires to live like James Bond. He once crossed the English Channel in an amphibious vehicle in a tuxedo; Branson lifted the building with a rope while drinking champagne when Virgin Galactic's hangar opened in New Mexico; and he drove a tank through New York's 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's attitude will be, 'Congratulations on your flight, but you haven't actually been to space,'" the source said.

It is reported that when one of their opponents was openly successful, the three men were going crazy. Bezos is very jealous of all the US government contracts awarded to Musk and SpaceX. On the inside, he feels uneasy, "says Ars Technica's Baig." In 2017, after Musk received a $1.3 billion tax credit for locating a battery factory in Nevada, Bezos sent an email to key employees: "Why does Musk have the ability to get huge government incentives?" and we don't. "

At the same time, Branson is "not really a rocket scientist," said Rand Simberg, an industry analyst who has dealt with all three companies. "he's a brand. 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 Mr Musk almost ignored further pleas. In 2015, Musk squeezed Branson out of a satellite Internet service agreement with Alphabet Inc-CL C executives.

Rob Meyerson (Rob Meyerson), a former president of Blue Origin and now an operating partner at C5 Capital Investment, believes competition has made them all better. "very successful people are very competitive-they motivate each other," he said. "SpaceX has a culture of America versus the world; it gives Musk a chip on his shoulder and pushes them forward. It also sets the pace for Bezos and Branson. "