Billionaire Space Race
Jayakrishna Melagiri
When it comes to space missions or any space-related programs. Earlier, the only name of the space agency heard globally was NASA, to conduct Space activities. But in the 1960s many space agencies emerged across the world, and race into space was started.
Now NASA has a competitor to face the race it was the soviet union and it was ROSCOSMOS they were a tough competitor to NASA. Both were conducting programs but NASA was ahead by conducting Apollo machines and much more. ROSCOSMOS were consuming the time but they were progressive and efficient
After 2–3 decades, many efficient space agencies joined this race. They were ISRO, ESA, CNSA. They were busy discovering the exoplanets out of the solar system, landing on the moon, building an international space station, launching a satellite, trying to communicate aliens(hypothetical), etc.
I think you are feeling a bit confused as the article named was, “billionaires Space race’ but all these agencies are governed by the respective government of the country. The wealth of the agencies depend on the budget
provided by the government. And the budget is affected by many reasons in the country like poverty, trade, GDP. Stock Market, transparency in government, etc. Since 2012 not only the government but the private space agencies emerged. These private agencies were established by the billionaires in the world. And these agencies are coming forward to colonize the Mars and moon, space tourism, and many more.
Firstly the private space agency “BLUE ORIGIN’ is an American aerospace manufacturing company established in 2000 by Jeff Bezos. As you know he is currently the world richest man (2020). Firstly to travel into space we need space vehicles. And it should be less costly as possible. By developing a suitable infrastructure, our future generations can explore outside of the earth conveniently. Blue origin has been saying that the above mention requirement can be fulfilled with reusable rockets cum spacecraft’s that are vertical landing rockets. In earlier 2015 they were no vertical landing rockets, they were used only once for take-off and they are 3-stage. Rockets were manufactured for only one-time use, recycling them and modifying is highly cost and waste of time. By using vertical take-off and landing rockets we can use rockets for many years, instead of manufacturing each rocket for every space machine. For this blue origin started one project named “New Shepard’ in 2005 after deep research, they designed and manufactured the rocket. On April 29, 2015, they tested, it travelled 93 km, but while landing it failed. Again they tested on November 29, 2015, it was successful. 12 times it was tested till December 2019, except the first test it was successful all the time. The height of the spacecraft is 18 meters, it has capsule on its top their we have seats for astronauts or space tourists, at a time 6 members can travel in the rocket. The capsule can be separated from the craft in emergencies, they tested this capsule for a safe landing it was also successful. Not only new Shepherd the blue origin team is also in progress in making a new craft called “NEW GLENN”, but it also has higher efficiency and capacity than the new Shepard, it can travel 1000 Km from the earth’s surface. They scheduled for 2024 to test the new Glenn, not only this, many projects like Blue Moon, Goddard, etc are developing under blue origin.
SpaceX
“SpaceX’ is a private space agency that designs, manufactures, and launches rockets and space crafts. The company was founded in 2002 by Elon musk. The main agenda of this space agency is to colonize exoplanets. Mainly it concentrates on developing the human civilization on Mars. To start civilization on an exoplanet we need a suitable spacecraft and it should be manufactured, budget-friendly and it should be affordable to a common man who is willing to travel because space travel is the high cost. The achievement made by the SpaceX was amazing, it is the first private space agency to send the liquid propellant rocket into the earth orbit, and also to send a reusable rocket to earth orbit operationally. It manufactures space crafts less than the market price. To colonize Mars the new spacecraft is getting ready named “STARSHIP” it carries more than 100 members, in 2024 the humans are going to step on the mars by travelling in the starship, many scientists are guessing that ordinary people can also travel into space by 2045 and space tourism is going playing a key role. The missions falcon9 also being developing under this agency, which is also a vertical landing spacecraft. In 2014, SpaceX had won nine contracts out of 20 that were openly competed worldwide in 2014 at commercial launch service providers. Not only to the mars and moon the SpaceX starship can be used to travel other exoplanets.
Virgin Galactic
Virgin Galactic is a spaceflight company within the Virgin Group. It is developing commercial spacecraft and aims to provide suborbital spaceflights to space tourists and suborbital launches for space science missions. It was established by Sir Richard Charles Nicholas Branson, is a British business magnate in 2004. This company is established for mainly two purposes for space missions and space tourism. This agency has established, sister company called spaceship both companies together manufactures the spacecraft. And also they developed a spaceflight system called “spaceship2”, normally for space travelling agencies like blue origin, SpaceX, other agencies use rockets. But this company manufactures the spacecraft which is partially rocket and aeroplane named spaceship 2 flight system.
As shown in the figure, the last two named white night 2 works on the aeroplane engine, and the middle one named spaceship 2 works on the rocket thrusters. The white night 2 travels up to atmosphere edge and separates from the spaceship, and it travels into space. To land the spacecraft, virgin galactic constructed a space-port, it is the first port in the world, this spacecraft has been tested 6 times till now, it was successful for the 5 times, it failed in the first trial only And it will be used operationally in future, it travels 4800 kmph. Already 600 members have pre-booked tickets through virgin galactic for a space tour, each ticket costs $ 2,50,000. Not only astronauts even the common people can also travel into space and those days are coming soon. Nowadays real estate business is going on the moon, where we can buy land on the moon. But we have to wait and see.
Pack your bags, for the tour..!
Let’s see which company gives a better offer. Don’t forget to carry cameras with you.
