Kaleidoscope 2021: Billionaires Compete To Develop Flying Business And Space Tourism
JAKARTA - Sunday, July 11 will be a special and historic day for the world of space aviation. On that exact date, Billionaire Richard Branson flew into space with two pilots and three other passengers, from Spaceport America near the city of Truth.
This has been one of Sir Richard Branson's dreams for decades. Branson, in remarks from the Virgin Galactic flight on Sunday, said spaceflight was extraordinary.
"The complete experience of a lifetime," shortly after the spacecraft successfully took off over New Mexico.
After being in space for about 4 minutes, Unity 22 began to fly down and re-enter the Earth's atmosphere. In total it only took about 3 minutes for Branson to feel weightlessness in space!
Furthermore, congratulatory uploads from astronauts and various parties appeared on social media such as Twitter for this success. Congratulations to Virgin Galactic appeared on social media after the flight landed, for example from NASA officials to astronauts.
The success of this project marks a "race" to the numbers by three of the world's richest people. Apart from Branson, there was Jeff Bezos who also flew overseas with several paying passengers.
Then there's Elon Musk with the SpaceX spacecraft who won a mission to the Moon from NASA. Even SpaceX brought some other cargo to fly to the International Space Station's ISS.
After a successful flight into space, Richard Branson came back with a crazy idea. This billionaire wants to build a hotel on the moon, which he has always dreamed of. Especially when he looks to the future after his maiden flight with Virgin Galactic.
The space tourism pioneer and billionaire astronaut says future I customers can expect 'more spaceships,' from Virgin. This ultimately reduces travel costs.
It is currently estimated that a ticket to the edge of space with Virgin Galactic, such as Branson's Sunday, July 11 trip, will cost around $250.000. Even though it only took them 90 minutes to take off and finally return to the runway.
Jeff Bezos finally blasted off into space on Tuesday, July 20. The Amazon owner flew in the first crewed flight of his rocket, the New Shepard.
Jeff is accompanied by Mark Bezos, his brother, Wally Funk, an 82-year-old space pioneer of the space race, and Oliver Daemen, a Dutch student, 18.
They fly in capsules with the largest windows flown in space, which offer stunning views of Earth. The four passengers have now safely landed back on Earth after 11 minutes of their journey.
New Shepard, built by Bezos' company Blue Origin, is designed to serve the growing space tourism market. On this flight, there were the oldest person to have ever been to space, Funk, and the youngest, student Oliver Daemen.
The spacecraft took off at 9:12 a.m. ET at 8:12 p.m. EDT from a private launch site near Van Horn, Texas.
After the capsule landed, Bezos said: "Astronaut Bezos (his call sign): Best day ever!"
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After Virgin Galactic with Unity 22, and Jeff Bezos, owner of Blue Origin, on a New Sheppard rocket, took their tourists into space, it was SpaceX's turn to take their tourists into space.
A SpaceX rocket blasted off from Florida on Wednesday September 15 carrying an e-commerce billionaire and three civilians he chose to join him in the first ever-launched civilian crew member to fly into Earth orbit.
A quartet of amateur space explorers led by Jared Isaacman, American founder and chief executive of financial services firm Shift4 Payments Inc, took off at 8:03 p.m. EDT (07:03 a.m. Indonesian Western Time, Thursday) from the Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida.
A SpaceX webcast from the launch shows Isaacman, 38, and his colleagues - Sian Proctor, (51), Hayley Arceneaux (29), and Chris Sembroski (42), strapped to a pressurized cabin in the sparkling white SpaceX Crew Dragon capsule, which nicknamed Resilience. They also wore black-and-white flight suit helmets.
What is done by Branson, Bezos and Musk is marking a trip into space. Even further, there is an emergence of private companies that participate in exploring outer space.
This trend in the future will make business and exploration into outer space more widespread and the mission to live on the Moon and even settle on Planet Mars, will be more real soon to be realized.