Space travel is gradually coming center stage, and Elon Musk and his SpaceX are determined to set the trend. Recently billionaires Sir Richard Branson and Jeff Bezos undertook journeys to space. The former is from Britain, and the latter is from America. It is now the turn of another American to raise the bar. He is none other than Elon Musk, and he sent a team of four civilians on a short duration trip to space. None of them is a professional astronaut, and the journey will go down in history as the first-ever mission to Earth's orbit crewed entirely by tourists.
The venue was NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida. After the launch, when the SpaceX rocket attained the required orbital speeds, the capsule detached from the rocket. Subsequently, the four passengers in the capsule began to maneuver toward its intended orbit. The team is a unique mix of a billionaire who self-funded the mission. Along with him are a cancer survivor, a community college teacher, and an employee of Lockheed Martin. They are strapped in their seats and will remain in the capsule for three days. The splashdown will be off the coast of Florida on Saturday.
SpaceX imparts a new dimension to space travel
Elon Musk has leaped into the business of space tourism. The first batch of space tourists has taken off.
They are in a capsule that travels at a speed of 17,500 miles per hour and circles our planet Earth once every 90 minutes. The Crew Dragon capsule is the trump card of SpaceX. NASA's American space agency awarded a contract to design and build it to ferry astronauts to and from the International Space Station ISS. SpaceX is its owner, and it has the authority to use it for business purposes.
As a result, the company can sell seats or entire missions to any company. SpaceX has full liberty to design entire missions, including the food for the passengers. In April 2020, SpaceX sent astronauts from American soil to the space lab ISS. It happened after a decade of travel on Russian Souyz spaceships.
There could be many more SpaceX tourism missions
Elon Musk’s company SpaceX is hopeful. It feels there would be many similar tourism missions. In due course of time, taking a jaunt to space could be like hopping on an airplane. There have been earlier instances of civilians traveling to space. It has always been a domain ruled by scientists. Their work relates to understanding the behavior of humans in alien surroundings. The ultimate goal is to colonize other planets. In January 2019, Musk had talked about SpaceX and manned missions to the Moon and Mars.
Commercial rocket ventures mean SpaceX
SpaceX is a well-established player in the field of commercial rocket ventures. Elon Musk's company created history by launching the world's first all-civilian crew into Earth's orbit.
There is no crew involvement in flying the spacecraft even though there are two licensed pilots in the team. Ground-based flight teams and onboard guidance systems will fly the spacecraft. Obviously, it would be a combination of Artificial Intelligence, renewable energy, and robotics to deliver the goods. Billionaire Jared Isaacman (38) has paid for the tour, and he leads the team. Along with him are Sian Proctor (51), Hayley Arceneaux (29), and Chris Sembroski (42). The flight does not have any professional astronauts, and its duration would be about three days from liftoff to splashdown in the Atlantic. This marks the entry of SpaceX into the new orbital tourism business. Virgin Galactic and Blue Origin are rivals of SpaceX. Both the owners' Sir Richard Branson and Jeff Bezos, are billionaires. They also went to space but for brief periods.
