Virgin Galactic and Blue Origin flights have shown that space can be achieved, but is space tourism desirable?
July 11 will definitely be the day 0, the beginning. With his flight to the upper atmosphere, Richard Branson paved the way for hundreds, even thousands of other people to space tourism. The historic flight was confirmed nine days later by Jeff Bezos, one of his biggest rivals in space and travel. Their two companies, Virgin Galactic and Blue Origin, respectively, are looking for profitability, and space tourism seems to be the perfect solution to their financial problems.
But while the outlines of what space tourism will look like are beginning to take shape, as 600 people have already booked seats for the Virgin Galactic flight, a few questions remain. One thing is for sure: from next year, space tourism will become a reality.
Space tourism: tomorrow?
Virgin Galactic is in two test flights since launching its commercial program, and Blue Origin, which has just conducted its first compelling manned demonstration, should follow suit. With them in the forefront, the whole of New Space is preparing to jump on the step of space tourism before it slips out of their fingers.
For many companies, space tourism is the Holy Grail, the only viable solution to achieve financial balance. Today, New Space is a speculative bubble, investors are rushing to help young startups grow, and the latter live on financial perfusion, they continue to grow without worrying about bills. The problem is that investors will eventually demand a return on their investment. And today, the only solution New Space has found to bring back those billions is space tourism.
Space science tourism
But space tourism is not only sending very happy people to the most remote corners of the atmosphere, but also the opportunity for private companies offering these flights to conduct their scientific experiments on board. According to experts, all scientific experiments conducted on Earth with gravity have never worked without this force, so the fact that suborbital flights offer seconds or even minutes of weightlessness is good for private laboratories and large universities.
This practice is not new – Virgin Galactic and Blue Origin have already conducted scientific experiments during test flights of their spacecraft – but it should become more widespread as space tourism expands. These suborbital flights are a real opportunity for scientists to find in them the perfect interval between parabolic flights on “0G” aircraft, which offer moments of gravity of about 30 seconds, and much longer and more complex missions that require either their own satellite in orbit or the conclusion of the experiment. of the ISS. Practices worth millions of dollars, which are very rare today. Thus, space tourism can contribute to the development of this method of studying space science.
Many believe in this new usefulness of space tourism. First of all, it can be a real marketing asset for companies like Blue Origin or Virgin Galactic. Influencing the development of tomorrow’s science will add new meaning to corporate flights, which are now seen by many as “entertainment for billionaires.” But what can be very interesting with these flights is the huge window of experience they open.
What is the impact on the environment?
If the scientific issue can restore the image of tourism for the rich, the environmental issue risks upsetting the balance of power. Indeed, space flight is polluting. While Virgin Galactic flights are the most polluting today because they are methane, Blue Origin flights, which are still powered by the BE-3 hydrogen-oxygen engine, are cleaner than the Virgin Galactic prototype. The New Shepard rocket should also switch to methane with a new generation BE-4 engine. This highly toxic gas to the planet is a quasi-obligation in the world of aerospace industry, because it gives much better results than hydrogen.
Thus, the conquest of space faces a new dilemma in a way that seeks to be more and more environmentally friendly. The NASA SLS and SpaceX Starship projects are both good aerospace news and environmental disasters in the making. Although space could become a “trillion-dollar economy” by 2040, according to the young German startup Isar Aerospace, it will have to solve environmental problems to survive. The solution could be nuclear reaction engines, the study of which is funded by part of NASA’s budget this year.