Virgin Galactic and Blue Origin Will be Launching Their First Space flights this Month
The future is here with space tourism starting this month with rivals Virgin Galactic and Blue Origin. Both of the companies have their first space flight scheduled to depart just days apart.
The space flight of Virgin Galactic will blast off on July 11th and Blue Origin’s flight is scheduled to take off on July 20th. While Virgin Galactic was founded by British billionaire Richard Branson, Blue Origin is founded by Amazon’s Jeff Bezos.
The companies are offering suborbital flights that will last no longer than a few minutes. The passengers will be able to feel weightlessness and see the planet from outer space.
Despite these similarities, the differences are greater in number between the two companies.
Virgin Galactic is founded by now 70-year-old Branson 2014, who has a wide variety of businesses ranging from, finance to telecom to entertainment. He is a very adventurous person. He has crossed the Pacific in a hot-air balloon and also used an amphibious vehicle to navigate the English Channel.
Blue Origin was founded by the richest man on the planet, Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos. The 57-year-old founded the space company in 2000 and he has recently resigned from his post of CEO of Amazon to concentrate more on the space business.
There are also differences in the spacecraft made by the two companies.
The spacecraft by Virgin Galactic is not like a usual rocket. It will be attached to a big carrier airplane and will take off from a runway. It will have two pilots and up to six passengers. There will be 12 windows and 16 cameras in the cabin. After reaching the high altitude, the smaller spacecraft VSS Unity will be released and it will fire its engines to reach suborbital space. The spacecraft will remain in space for two minutes before coming down to Earth.
Blue Origin will have a vertical blast-off accelerating to over Mach 3, which is three times the force of Earth’s natural gravity. After it goes into the correct altitude, the capsule accommodating the passengers will be separated from the booster. It will stay at a higher altitude for four minutes and then glide back to Earth offering the experience of weightlessness to the passengers.
The booster will land on a pad that is situated two miles away from the launch site on its own. The capsule will come back to the surface with the help of three parachutes, which will slow it down when it lands. The capsule will have six seats and six windows.
Virgin Galactic has announced that they will begin regular commercial space flights from 2022. They hope to send 400 flights per year from its base Spaceport America in New Mexico. They have sold almost 600 tickets so far at prices between $200,000 and $250,000. Tickets.
Blue Origin has not announced the ticket prices. Only one seat has been booked at $28 million by a mysterious individual.
Glenda Bozeman – Business and Services
Glenda Bozeman writes Business articles for industries that want to see their Google search rankings surge. Her articles have appeared in a number of sites. Her articles focus on enlightening with informative Services sector needs. She holds the degree of Masters in Business and Marketing. Before she started writing, she experimented with various professions: computer programming, assistant marker, and others. But her favorite job is writing that she is now doing full-time.
