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HOUSTON – He still looks like the NASA astronaut that he once was. Same position of chest. Same instinct Top Gun. Same American flag on the left shoulder of his flight suit. Chris Ferguson even has a call sign, "Fergy".
There is a small detail that distinguishes Ferguson from NASA astronauts with whom he trains. The red-white-blue logo of the space agency on their spacesuit carries the corporate badge of Boeing – a small accessory that symbolizes what the space agency hopes to be a new era in space travel .
Ferguson leaves NASA He was commander of the last space shuttle mission in 2011. Today, he is a corporate astronaut who hopes to become one of the first citizens to launch into orbit around of a commercial rocket
. The flight of the Boeing Starliner spacecraft, it would serve alongside NASA astronauts. But NASA hopes that its presence in the International Space Station's mission augurs for a long-awaited new chapter in the US manned space program, where commercial companies have put an end to the government's long-standing monopoly in the airborne space. space with the hope of making it accessible to civilians.
NASA has been unable to steal people from American soil since the shuttle was removed. Since then, his astronauts have flown to the space station on Russian rockets from a Soviet launch site in Kazakhstan. In 2014, NASA awarded Boeing and SpaceX $ 6.8 billion worth of contracts to develop spacecraft capable of restoring human spaceflight from the coast of space. of Florida
. Space Shuttle, hoping that by hiring companies to provide some sort of taxi service to the space station, they would also carry all sorts of pbadengers into orbit.
In the contracts, NASA included a provision allowing Boeing and SpaceX to sell tickets. to steal ordinary people, even tourists, on NASA missions – civilian astronauts that the companies would train and then fly to the station, where they would spend about a week in space.
"We wanted to essentially allow a new market," said Phil McAlister, director of NASA's Commercial Space Flight Division. "We wanted these companies to be able to sell their services to non-government customers … NASA has always had the desire to open space flights to a wider audience."
This is also the goal of SpaceX. "
Spaceflight is our company's primary mission – to help create a future where millions of people are exploring the stars and living on other planets," said Gwynne Shotwell, President and Chief Executive Officer. SpaceX Exploitation in a Statement to the Washington Post 19659003] Rebadembled in the Roosevelt Hall of the White House in 1985, Vice President George HW Bush declared that he was "pleased to announce" the first private citizen in the history of spaceflight. "That's Christa McAuliffe, a social sciences teacher from Concord, New Hampshire, 36, who has promised to keep her diary on time in orbit, as did the "Conestoga Trolley Time Pioneers"
. NASA had won the Cold War Space Race on the Moon and was now aiming to make the Space Shuttle a routine aircraft , a winged space plane that was suppo fly at a reasonable price and eventually bring all kinds of objects into space. already in the running for his next big program, a reporter who has aroused the interest of some of the biggest names in the information industry, including Walter Cronkite.
"With time, poets, painters, workers, musicians and others" Then, 73 seconds after the Space Shuttle Challenger takes off, it explodes, killing McAuliffe and the other six Pbadengers
The McAuliffe Safeguard, Barbara Morga n, finally flew onto the shuttle in 2007. There was no journalist in the space.After the demolition of the shuttle Columbia in 2003 , again killing all seven on board, NASA began cutting back on the shuttle program.
But now, a growing commercial space industry, fueled largely by the finances of several billionaire entrepreneurs, is [19659003AlthoughheneverstealsasinglehumanbeingElonMuskthefounderofSpaceXtalksaboutthecolonizationofMarsandsayshiscompanywilleventuallyflytwopayingtouristsaroundthemoonNASAastronautsremainsthepriorityabSoluethecompanyhealsoplansto"startflyingmissionsforprivatecitizens"ShotwellsaidInadditiontothemoontourshesaidthecompanywasabouttosignanotheragreementtostealprivatecitizensalthoughsherefusedtoprovidedetailswalksinayearortwo(BezosownstheWashingtonPost)JustlikeVirginGalacticbyRichardBransonwhoperseveredevenafteraco-pilotwaskilledwhenhisspaceplanecollapsedduringaflightfromtheplanetestin2014
Even Boeing, the government's big entrepreneur, has partnered with a company called Space Adventures to help book tourists on its flights. The Virginia-based company has helped arranged robberies for seven tourists, including Dennis Tito, the American businessman, on Russian rockets at the space station in orbit. The company will not disclose the cost – estimated at tens of millions of dollars – but she says she's got a list of several other loans to go, including Sergey Brin, the Google co-founder, who has filed a $ 5 million deposit 2008.
Maybe one day, costs will go down – companies say it's the goal as more people arrive in the # 39; space. But for now, space would be a playground for super rich – or government astronauts. Virgin Galactic charges $ 250,000 for its flights. Blue Origin, which plans to start selling tickets next year, has not announced any price.
Axiom Space, a Houston-based company, plans to build a private space station and hired Philippe Starck, the French designer, to make it as modern and comfortable as an outpost in the US. space: oval windows in the cabins, fluffy and soft walls, not metal, and an observatory with 360-degree views, "the best view anyone has ever had of the Earth," said the co-founder of Axiom, Mike Suffredini, who had been director of the International Space Station for NASA.
The company hopes to launch the first parts of the station by the end of 2022 or 2023, did it? In the meantime, he has made an agreement with NASA to send tourists to the International Space Station for 10 days at a time.The cost: $ 55 million
McAlister of NASA is not discouraged by prices.
"I think we're just starting , "he said." Historically, air travel has always been very expensive, but only relatively affluent travelers could afford to travel by air at the time they were offered, and then we saw over time new generations of aircraft more economical.
A former fighter pilot of the Navy who followed the formation of Top Gun, Ferguson flew three times with NASA, spending more than 40 days in orbit. He was selected as an astronaut in 1998, then as commander of the latest mission from the United States.
"Mission accomplished, Houston," he said after stopping the shuttle Atlantis. "After serving the world for over 30 years, the Space Shuttle has earned its place in history, and it has come to a final stop."
Ferguson is badured that he was the last person to get off the shuttle. There were speeches and toasts marking the occasion. But below, everything was sad. NASA and the country were anchored. Seven years later, it still is.
He never thought that he was going to fly again. Especially like that.
"What is Fergy then?" said Sandy Magnus, a former NASA astronaut who flew twice with Ferguson. "A private astronaut, he is unique, he is not a tourist, he is paid, he spreads technical knowledge in the space, but he is also not a government astronaut, so how do you call it? "
the country, but for his employer. Boeing uses its own test pilots to run its vehicles, including commercial airliners and fighter jets. A spaceship is no different, Ferguson says.
He also sees himself playing a pivotal role at a pivotal moment in the history of manned spaceflight: "Can we make spaceflight safe and profitable, not just for the sake of the elite?" "Big companies and governments with deep pockets?"
Ferguson is now 56, with gray temples, adult children and progressive lenses. His reflexes are no longer what they were when he transported the F-14 Tomcats on the aircraft carrier decks. And his wife, who thought everything would be over now, is starting to get upset, as Boeing had to postpone the dates of his first flights, fighting to prepare the Starliner and meet NASA's stringent safety requirements.
becomes antsy, too – and the pressure rises. The Trump administration has restored the National Council of Space, made space a priority and is eager to have crew rockets again taking off from Florida's space coast.
Who will launch first – Boeing or SpaceX? This is a subject of intense speculation in the space community, a modern space race, where companies are taking over the roles formerly played by nations: Boeing, the traditional pillar, against the sbady and agile attire of Elon Musk .
The competition was publically seen after Boeing CEO Dennis Muilenburg boasted that the first rocket to bring humans to Mars would be built by his company.
What Musk replied on Twitter: "Do it."
Boeing confirmed last week The system suffered from a major problem during a test conducted in June: the engine leaked when the engines were stopped. While Boeing officials said "we are convinced that we have found the cause and that we are moving forward with corrective measures", the problem is likely to further delay its launch schedule
. feared that in case of emergency, Boeing 's abortion system forces the spacecraft to "tumble down, which could pose a threat to the safety of the crew.
Boeing said he solved the problem and "respect or exceed"
SpaceX also faced delays as it corrected a problem that blew up its Falcon 9 rocket into a spectacular fireball while being powered on the dashboard in 2016.
In his corner, Boeing a Ferguson, a secret weapon somehow, a polished and polite pilot with a spotless summary.
On the last shuttle mission, he left an American flag aboard the International Space Station, with "the goal that the next bitter crew"
The race is like a "kind of adult who captures the flag," Ferguson said. "It probably has more importance for me than for anyone in our competition, for example." Being among the last to throw US soil "does not give me the right to get it," he said. "But we are in a pretty good position."
This spring, Ferguson was back in the badpit of the simulator, training to fly again. It had been years since he was flying, and he was a little nervous that he became rusty. He was now an officer, who wore more often than the company uniform trousers and dress shirts
He has a company title: the director of operations of the crew and of the mission of Boeing
. a plane. His new spaceship was a thimble-shaped capsule, much harder to control. In this particular test, he would be faced with the worst case scenario: each autonomous spacecraft computer would be pulled out, which means that he would have to fly manually, hit the atmosphere at Mach 25, or 25 times the speed of sound, then, somehow, bring it back for a soft landing. Two of the four NASA astronauts who had attempted it had failed, losing control of the spacecraft for it to plummet, and Ferguson was eager to get into training.
"I do not need to embarrbad or embarrbad you" he had told his coach
"The practice is good," she said.
He struggled with what he called the "pitch worm". If the spaceship pitched too much, it would begin a fall almost impossible to recover. He was also having trouble seeing the screen in front of him because he was so close.
"I have to tilt my head to see through the right side of my glbades," he complained. buy a cheap pair of readers, "said his trainer.
" I have a lot of cheap readers, "he replied." I just forgot to bring them with me. "
He forgot to bring them the next day, too, for the official test.But now he was in a spacesuit, and every time he bent his head to see through the lower part of his lenses, his glbades were shot sideways, hitting his helmet
The spaceship started to oscillate 120 kilometers high "Oh, here we are," Ferguson said, gripping the joystick, shooting the thrusters in short bursts so that the spacecraft remains level. "Game on."
Behind a glbad wall, a pair of evaluators observed.
"It makes it look easy," says one of them. "But it's going from easy to difficult very quickly."
The spaceship was now tearing apart the air that's & # 39; thickened, flying Mach 17 at 60 km, Mach 13 then Mach 6.5. Ferguson was in the groove, talking to himself and pulling the thrusters to stabilize the spacecraft.
"Keep pushing the pitch worm," he said quietly to himself. "Earn it."
"It looks really good," said one of the evaluators behind the glbad wall. "You can see that he is fighting the field."
Altitude: 50 km, then 40 km, then 30 km
Finally, the parachutes deployed. The spaceship splashed. Ferguson delivered his line, repeating the coda that would usher in a new space age:
"Houston, we landed."
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