With the rise of commercial flights shooting into the sky and civilians spending ungodly sums of money to get an “astronaut” label and visit outer space, there is a growing curiosity about what these flights entail.
On Tuesday, July 20, 2021, the founder of Amazon, Jeff Bezos, is all set to fly to the edge of space along with three others, aboard his company Blue Origin's New Shepard rocket. Surpassing the troposphere and stratosphere, the space flights of Blue Origin will fly to the edge of space, about 100 km above the Earth’s mean sea level—the Karman line, also called the ‘edge of space’.
This boundary, named after Hungarian physicist Theodore von Kármán, was established in the 1960s by Fédération Aéronautique Internationale, for providing a definition to space and separating ‘air-space’ and ‘outer-space.’ SpaceX flights have gone way beyond this boundary and have even carried astronauts to the International Space Station.
The spaceflight that Virgin Galactic's founder Richard Branson took as part of Unity 22 on July 11 did not go beyond the Karman Line. The pioneering private spaceflight went up to 89 km—beyond 50 miles (80 km) altitude, which the US space agency NASA, the Federal Aviation Administration and the U.S. military classify as space.
Nevertheless, the new space race between private entrepreneurs also marks the beginning of a new era of space tourism, with hundreds of people lining up to be a part of the new adventure. The Karman Line is not the only differentiator between the spaceflights of Virgin Galactic and Blue Origin. Here's a quick snapshot of all important features of private spaceflght:
Comparing spaceflight capabilities of Virgin Galactic and Blue Origin
Both Virgin Galactic and Blue Origin space flights are designed for suborbital flights, meaning space trips within the Earth’s orbit. The trips remain confined within the outer atmosphere of the Earth. The vestibules and their trajectory are designed not to allow the vehicle to acquire the required escape velocity to reach the Earth’s orbit and complete a revolution around it.
Most Virgin Galactic spacecraft has a jet-powered aircraft docked underneath. The carrier aircraft takes off from a runway and climbs to an altitude of more than 40,000 feet. Then the spacecraft is dropped, free-falling briefly before firing its rocket motor and ascending to about 295,000 feet, or roughly 90 kilometres, which is 10 kilometres short of the Karman line.
The spacecraft essentially does a slow backflip at the edge of space, with passengers spending a few minutes floating in microgravity before it re-enters the Earth’s atmosphere and glides back onto the runway. The company reuses the spacecraft, replacing the hybrid rocket engine and reconnecting it to the carrier aircraft.
Blue Origin's rocket-and-capsule combo, called the New Shepard, shoots into suborbital space and then separates its components. The pressurised capsule floats in microgravity for a while before falling back to Earth assisted by a parachute system. This domed capsule boasts six observation windows一the largest ever used in a space travel vestibule. The 60-foot tall rocket section returns to the launchpad, and the company can reuse this booster rocket for future launches.
The Virgin Galactic space-planes can accommodate 4 passengers, with 2 additional crew members. The flight is a 90-minute thrill ride, including a weightlessness experience of several minutes when the plane floats in microgravity. On the other hand, the Blue Origin rockets are designed for 10-minute fully autonomous flights, with at most 6 passengers on board.
SpaceX
SpaceX has already entered the orbital tourism arena一a feat restricted to government-funded agencies for more than half a century一taking crew and passengers up to 400 kilometres above the Earth’s surface.
The SpaceX launch system uses a larger capsule and more powerful rocket compared to the Blue Origin combo. Its ‘Dragon’ capsule can carry more passengers than the others一7 at the moment一and a 230-foot tall rocket booster called Falcon rocket, which it uses to reach the Earth’s orbit and make trips around the Earth. The SpaceX trips also last longer than the other private space travel options, with trips lasting about 3-4 days from launch to splashdown.
SpaceX is currently working on building a starship capable of carrying cargo with up to 100 passengers at a time to outer space. SpaceX's charter flights will soon begin missions to the Moon, and eventually to Mars.
**
For weather, science, and COVID-19 updates on the go, download The Weather Channel App (on Android and iOS store). It's free!
