When he was 18, Jeff Bezos said that he wanted to build hotels, amusement parks and colonies in orbit for millions of people, gradually transforming the Earth into a sort of gigantic naturalistic area to save it. Now that he is 57 years old and is one of the richest people in the world, Bezos is preparing to reach Space, even if for a few minutes and without the possibility of stopping in an orbital hotel, which does not yet exist. The launch, much anticipated and anticipated by the media around the world, will take place today from Texas around 3 pm (Italian time), thanks to the space company Blue Origin by Bezos himself, who became a billionaire thanks to his Amazon.
If all goes as planned, it will be the first manned flight for New Shepard, the rocket developed in recent years by Blue Origin with the aim of entering the nascent space tourism market. After 15 test launches with no people on board, today’s one will take place just over a week from Virgin Galactic’s maiden voyage, which allowed its founder, the British billionaire Richard Branson, to experience weightlessness for a few minutes. Blue Origin was supposed to have made its own experimental flight before Virgin Galactic, which then decided to anticipate the launch: Branson then went into space before Bezos, who didn’t take it very well.
In the days before the launch of Virgin Galactic, Blue Origin had released announcements and messages on social networks to show the differences compared to the competition, especially on the share reached by the respective spacecraft. For the United States Federal Aviation Agency, Space begins above 80 kilometers of altitude, an altitude to which Virgin Galactic goes, while more internationally shared conventions identify the beginning of Space beyond the so-called Kármán line at 100 kilometers of altitude, which is the altitude reached by Blue Origin.
Beyond the dispute, neither company still offers orbital flights, that is, with the possibility of making at least one circle around the Earth. They carry out suborbital flights: a sort of large parabola from the moment of launch to that of return, making them experience a condition of weightlessness (almost total) in some phases of the descent. Passengers can thus get an idea of how astronauts float when they are in space, and at the same time they can enjoy a rather panoramic view of a portion of our planet.
The interior of the Blue Origin space capsule, in the background the Earth (Blue Origin)
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The New Shepard rocket is 18 meters high, uses a single engine and has a space capsule on its top in which Bezos will be housed along with three other people. Unlike Virgin Galactic’s spacecraft, Blue Origin’s is self-driving and does not require the presence of a pilot. New Shepard will depart from the launch area southeast of El Paso in West Texas and once it reaches almost 100 kilometers of altitude it will separate from the space capsule, then returning to the ground with a controlled reentry.
The capsule with Bezos and the other passengers will then remain in Outer Space for a few minutes, and then begin its return to the ground. Its run will be slowed down by parachutes and finally by the ignition for a few seconds of some rear rockets, which will make contact with the ground less traumatic. The whole experience will last approximately ten minutes.
(Blue Origin)
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For Blue Origin it will be a very important launch not only for the presence of its founder, whose journey has attracted the attention of the media, but also to verify the reliability of the systems in view of the opening to the public. The ticket will still be within the reach of a few: each passenger will have to pay several hundred thousand dollars, even if Blue Origin is confident that over time the prices can be lowered, thanks to the availability of more rockets to make launches more frequent. In addition to Mark Bezos, Jeff Bezos’ brother, Wally Funk and Oliver Daemen will be aboard the New Shepard space capsule.
Funk is 82 years old and is famous not only for being one of the first aviators, but also for having participated in the “Mercury 13” training program, in the 1960s, to demonstrate that women could also participate in space missions like men ( the first American in Space would have been Sally Ride, in 1983). Daemen is 18 years old and the son of Joes Daemen, CEO of Somerset Capital Partners investment firm.
According to Blue Origin, Funk will become the oldest person to ever reach Space, while Daemen the youngest. Currently the records are respectively of the US astronaut John Glenn, who participated in the mission of the Shuttle Discovery STS-95 at the age of 77 (who died in 2016, in 1962 he was the first American to enter orbit around the Earth), and of the cosmonaut Gherman Titov, who in 1961 reached Space a month before turn 26 (he died in 2000).
After the maiden flight, Blue Origin will organize more manned launches and in the meantime refine its commercial strategy. Bezos and Branson think that the time is ripe for a real space tourism, after the past experiences with which individual initiatives had been organized with launch systems already used for astronauts, such as the Soyuz of the Russian Space Agency (Roscosmos).
However, Bezos has more ambitious plans than Branson, as he had anticipated as early as 18. Projects include the construction of the New Glenn, a much more powerful rocket than New Shepard, to bring satellites into orbit and the development of new systems to collaborate with NASA, especially as part of the upcoming astronaut missions to the moon. In this case the Bezos’ competitor is billionaire Elon Musk, who has been working with NASA for some time with his space company SpaceX and has recently been awarded a contract to test a first transportation system to the Moon.
A launch of Crew Dragon propelled by a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket (Saul Martinez / Getty Images)
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SpaceX has larger and more powerful rockets than New Shepard and also collaborates with NASA to transport astronauts to the International Space Station. Musk has not ruled out that over time his company may also deal with space tourism and, subject to postponements, by the end of this year he should transport four individuals into orbit aboard his Dragon space capsule.
The billionaires’ race to space has attracted some criticism and has often been called frivolous and an end in itself. Musk, Bezos and in part Branson believe instead that competition can accelerate the research and development of new solutions to make feasible not only rapid excursions into space, but also systems for interplanetary space exploration.
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