Tourist trips in space, very close to reality

Washington. The two companies that lead the race in terms of tourist trips to space ensure that they are only a few months away from the first, even if none has ever wanted to embark on a precise adventure

Virgin Galactic, founded by billionaire Richard Branson and Blue Origin, the creator of Amazon Jeff Bezos, compete, using totally different technologies, to complete their tests and become the first company to offer this service.

Moments of Weightlessness

Blue's will will not orbit the Earth, and his experience with weightlessness will only last a few minutes. It's a very different experience than the first space tourists, who paid tens of millions of dollars to get to the International Space Station (ISS) in the 2000s.

After having paid a lot of cheaper tickets – $ 250,000 to Virgin and we still do not know how much in Blue Origin -, these new space tourists will enter dozens of kilometers into the atmosphere before returning to Earth . For reference, the ISS is in orbit about 400 km from our planet

The goal is to cross this imaginary line where space begins, be it the Karman line, 100 km from the land surface, or the border that recognizes the air force of the United States, which is 80km.

Virgin Galactic

In the case of Virgin Galactic, six pbadengers and two pilots is the capacity of the ship VSS, which has the appearance of a private jet

This unit will be coupled with another spacecraft that accompanies it in its initial journey – the WhiteKnightTwo- from which it is separated at a height of about 15 km. Once separated, the VSS starts its propeller and continues on its way. Then the pbadengers will float in a weightless environment for a few minutes before returning to Earth

The descent is softened by a system that moves the tail of the ship in a kind of bow before returning to his position. Normal position, start planning and finish the landing at the Virgin Spaceport in the New Mexico Desert

The trip lasts between an hour and a half and two hours in total. During a test conducted May 29 on the Mojave Desert, the spacecraft reached an altitude of 34 kilometers.

In October 2014, a Virgin ship had a fault during the flight because of one pilot error and another. the two pilots on board are dead. The tests are then returned with another ship and the company has reached an agreement to open a second spaceport at Taranto-Grottaglie Airport in southern Italy.

Branson said in May on a BBC program that he was hoping to be one of the first pbadengers in the next 12 months.

About 650 people are already on the waiting list for this trip, according to Virgin.

Blue Origin

Blue Origin works with a technology that is more like the traditional rocket: the New Shepard.

On this ship, six pbadengers board a capsule inserted into the tip of an 18-meter rocket. After launch, this capsule separates from the rocket and continues its trajectory for several kilometers. During a test on April 29, the capsule has exceeded one hundred kilometers.

After a few minutes of weightlessness, during which pbadengers can see outside through large windows, the capsule gradually returns to the Earth helped in its descent by three large parachutes and propellers which slow down the fall.

From take-off to landing the flight took about ten minutes in the last test.

Until now, in tests have only been Rob Meyerson, one of the company's directors, said that they would soon start testing with humans.

Another Blue Origin official, Yu Matsutomi, informed Wednesday at a conference that the first trials with Human Beings will take place "at the end of this year," according to Space News.

And what comes next?

SpaceX and Boeing develop their own capsules to transport NASA astronauts, which are expected to be ready in 2020 after a few delays. This is a major investment that will likely be partly funded by the private flight offer.

"If you plan to travel in space, you will have four times more options than before," said Phil Larson, vice dean at AFP. from the School of Engineering at the University of Colorado.