Time to plan your next vacation to Space

Since the inception of space exploration with Neil Armstrong’s venture to the Moon on July 20^th 1969 followed by the first ever space shuttle Columbia launched on April 12^th 1981, mankind has always been inquisitive about learning about the outer world. Over the last few decades, with the astounding developments in technology, there have been multiple attempts to build rockets and space shuttles to traverse to the space. One of the first successes came on Nov 20^th 1998 that marks the birth of International Space Station – the first module of which, called Zarya, was taken to the space by a Russian rocket. Though there have been occasional failures with the Challenger Space Shuttle disaster on Jan 28^th 1986 and the Columbia Space Shuttle disaster on Feb 1^st 2003, the proportion of success has been overwhelming – so much so that we are currently looking at commercialization of space flights – i.e. anyone can take a flight to space just like we fly on the Earth from one location to the other. And to make this happen, the 3 heavyweight players in the game are – SpaceX, Blue Origin and Virgin Galactic. There is a fourth company, the United Launch Alliance, who is also in the loop.

                              

SpaceX, founded by Elon Musk in 2002, is considered to be the pioneer in commercializing space flights. Headquartered in California, USA and initially funded by NASA, SpaceX designed its first rocket – the Falcon 1 and then the Falcon 9 rockets, followed by the Falcon Heavy rocket in 2011. A constant driving factor for SpaceX was to design reusable rockets – i.e. rockets that could be used multiple times and not destroyed after one-time use like the conventional rockets. This was achieved in 2017 when SpaceX successfully landed the first stage of the rocket after it was separated from the main module. Not only did SpaceX make the used rocket automatically land back on the ground, it is also the pioneer in making rockets land on water bodies. This is achieved by using smart navigation algorithms that allows the rocket, once separated from the main module, to manipulate its trajectory and follow the path to land at the designated location. In 2014, SpaceX had revealed their space shuttle capsule to carry humans to the space – the Crew Dragon. In 2019, SpaceX started working on the Starship – the super heavy launch vehicle built with the aim to enable long duration cargo flight and also passenger carrying aircraft in the future. Recently in 2020, SpaceX achieved its first-ever crewed mission by sending NASA astronauts Bob Behnken and Dough Hurley to the ISS.

Founded by Jeff Bezos in 2000 and headquartered in Washington, USA, Blue Origin also aims to make access to space cheaper and reliable for the common mass. Interestingly, the name of the company comes from Blue signifying the planet Earth as the point of Origin -i.e. something that takes off from the Earth. In the initial days, Blue Origin mostly operated as a rocket engine supplier for other space launch companies. It was only in 2014 that the company decided to design its own rockets and space shuttles. Blue Origin’s rocket vehicle called New Shepard, named after the first American astronaut to go to space – Alan Shepard, began its test flights since 2015. From the technology standpoint, Blue Origin focuses on what is known as the Vertical Takeoff Vertical Landing. In 2019, Jeff Bezos revealed the company’s vision for space exploration and also its plan to design a Moon lander called the Blue Moon that would take humans to the Moon. The founded also mentioned about the company’s motivation to create a colony in the space that could replicate Earth.

The third competitor, Virgin Galactic, was founded in 2004 by Richard Branson and currently headquartered in New Mexico, USA. With a similar aim as others to open up space to tourists, the company has been designing its own spacecraft, called the Spaceship Two. A striking feature of Virgin Galactic is its launch system. Unlike both SpaceX and Blue Origin for whom the spacecraft takes off from the land, the Spaceship Two’s take off happens in the air. The company designed a long winged aircraft called the White Knight Two that serves as the launch platform for the spacecraft. The White Knight Two carries the spacecraft upto a height in the air from where the spacecraft launch takes place. Although in the recent past the company has displayed a couple of successful test flights, there is quite some distance to go in order to compete with SpaceX and Blue Origin.

Space exploration has come a long way. From designing reusable rockets to ideating the colonization of space in an attempt to create an alternate human residence to planet Earth – we have witnessed some striking innovations happening along the process. With the rapid evolution of technology and the remarkable expansion of engineering capabilities, it is probably a matter of time before we take a vacation trip to the space, arrange a destination wedding on the Moon, and eventually reside in a colony in the space and smile at the Earth from there!

To learn more:

1.https://timelines.issarice.com/wiki/Timeline_of_SpaceX

2.https://www.houstonchronicle.com/news/houston-texas/houston/article/NASA-SpaceX-launch-space-historic-high-stakes-15290196.php

3.https://www.space.com/19341-jeff-bezos.html

4.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virgin_Galactic