Two billionaires are racing to space.
Virgin Galactic and Blue Origin have been rivals since they both began targeting the same market, suborbital space tourism. Suborbital spaceflights do not go around the earth, they simply reach space then come back. It takes a lot less rocket fuel to reach suborbital space, then to enter a stable orbit. Both companies have spacecraft that are currently capable of reaching suborbital space and both will be used to launch humans to space in the coming months.
Blue Origin
Blue Origin has conducted 15 test flights of their New Shepard rocket, but none of them have had humans onboard. This is because New Shepard is totally autonomous, and does not need human pilots. This will be the case until July 20th, when Blue Origin will launch it's first crew into space. This crew will include Jeff Bezos, billionaire founder of Blue Origin and Amazon, and his brother. Flying with them will be Wally Funk, a pilot and member of the "Mercury 13" (a group of woman who passed the physical examinations to become astronauts, but weren't allowed to because of their gender.) In addition, a mysterious millionaire paid $28 million for a seat on this flight during an auction.
New Shepard is named after Alan Shepard, the first American in space. The spacecraft is made of two components a booster rocket and a pressurized capsule. After booster separation, the capsule then coasts to space. Both the booster and capsule land softly and can be reused. The capsule can send up to 6 people to space.
Virgin Galactic
If all goes according to plan, then Virgin Galactic will launch their founder, Richard Branson, into space on July 11th on the VSS Unity. This will be the first fully crewed spaceflight for Virgin Galactic. Their flight to space will come less then 2 months after their third suborbital test flight. Also flying with Richard Branson will be Beth Moses, who flew to space with Virgin Galactic once before, Sirisha Bandla, who will conduct a science experiment while in space, and Colin Bennett. These 3 passengers all work for Virgin Galactic. There will also be 2 pilots.
The VSS Unity is a reusable space plane that is dropped from a carrier aircraft. It then uses it's hybrid rocket engine to fly to space. After a few short minutes of weightlessness, the VSS Unity coasts back through the athmosphere and lands on a runway at Spaceport America, which is in New Mexico.
These two unique companies are racing to launch their billionaire founders to space, Virgin Galactic is scheduled to reach space first, but even a small delay could allow Blue Origin to beat them to the cosmos. After they complete a few more test flights, both companies want to launch tourists on their spacecrafts on a regular basis. Virgin Galactic has already sold 600 tickets to space each with a price tag of $250,000. Blue Origin has only sold one ticket, to the unknown person mentioned above. Blue Origin has not stated a standard price for a New Shepard flight.
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