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Are you a bit stir-crazy from being cooped up this previous 12 months? Have you ever been saving your cash for a pleasant lengthy journey? Effectively, one firm is promoting tickets for a trip into outer house this fall. And it’ll solely value about $250,000.
On Might 22, Virgin Galactic had a profitable take a look at of its first rocket shuttle, the VSS Unity, to the very high of the ambiance. The Unity was ferried as much as excessive altitude by the Virgin Mothership (a misnomer if I ever heard one), then launched. With rockets on, the Unity went 55 miles above Earth’s floor, with simply two pilots on board. For comparability, a jet airliner can go as much as about 20 miles excessive.
Along with a take a look at flight, the Unity carried a microgravity experiment from NASA’s Flight Alternatives program, which permits partnerships between NASA and business spaceflight business.
NASA oversees agreements between business flight suppliers and researchers from academia, nonprofit institutes and business, the place microgravity experiments will be carried into suborbital house for testing. For instance, a space-based surgical system designed to deal with zero-G medical emergencies, was aboard Unity.
Earlier than taking up paying prospects, two extra take a look at flights are deliberate. Unity has room for six passengers, and the following take a look at flight is scheduled with 4 mission specialists within the cabin.
Though there’s little info on what the mission specialists will do, presumably they want to take a look at the passenger expertise earlier than taking up paying prospects. A second trial flight could embrace billionaire Sir Richard Branson, proprietor of Virgin Galactic.
Virgin Galactic isn’t the one personal firm seeking to get in on the enterprise of house journey.
SpaceX, run by billionaire Elon Musk, has a sweepstake for a seat on its Dragon spacecraft in collaboration with St. Jude Youngsters’s Analysis Hospital. Simply make a small donation to St. Jude and your identify might be drawn!
The occasion is being funded partly by one other billionaire, Jared Isaacman, who will go into orbit with 3 sweepstakes winners. The mission is scheduled to raise off from Kennedy House Middle in Florida later this 12 months.
Blue Origin, headed by billionaire Jeff Bezos, is planning to fly its first crewed spaceflight on July 20, which coincidentally is the date of the primary moon touchdown. Their rocket ship, known as New Shepard (named after astronaut Alan Shepard), will get to zero gravity three minutes after launch, and reenter the ambiance three minutes later. Bidding for a passenger seat on that first flight is open, with the bid at the moment at solely $2.8 million.
In the event you’re considering that vacationer house journey is just for the very wealthy, you’d be proper. I suppose I’ll keep on with my summer season trip plans and simply go on the curler coaster.
Kenneth Hicks is a professor of physics and astronomy at Ohio College in Athens.
hicks@ohio.edu
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