This is a new stage for the lucrative, burgeoning and no less polluting space tourism industry, which has become the battleground for billionaires in the race for Space. The richest man on the planet, the American Jeff Bezos, 57, offered himself, Tuesday, July 20, the realization of his dream of going to space, aboard the first manned flight of his company Blue Origin.
These expensive expeditions led by billionaires are far from winning the support of many Terrans, in a context of repeated climatic disasters and the Covid-19 pandemic.
The New Shepard thruster, with a capsule carrying four people at its top, took off at 8:11 a.m. (3:11 p.m. in France), from a remote site in the Western Desert of Texas, 25 miles from the small town by Van Horn.
Alongside Jeff Bezos and his brother Mark were aviation pioneer Wally Funk, 82, and Blue Origin’s first paying customer, 18-year-old Dutchman Oliver Daemen, in the fully autonomous flight. On this occasion, the latter two became respectively the oldest and youngest astronaut in history.
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New Shepard propelled itself at speeds exceeding Mach 3 using an engine running on liquid hydrogen and oxygen, without carbon emissions. The capsule then separated from its thruster, and space travelers spent a few minutes 107 kilometers from Earth, beyond the Karman line (100 kilometers), the limit recognized by the Aeronautical Federation. international relationship between the Earth’s atmosphere and the rest of the Universe.
They were able to admire the curve of the Blue Planet and the deep black of the rest of the Universe, through large picture windows accounting for a third of the area of the cabin. “It’s all black here”exclaimed Mme Funk, depending on the audio stream emanating from the capsule.
After a few minutes in weightlessness, the capsule descended in free fall before deploying three giant parachutes, then a back-thruster, so as to land delicately in the desert after a flight of about ten minutes. When they left, the four passengers, in good shape, were greeted by cries of joy from the Blue Origin teams. Jeff Bezos wore a cowboy hat when he left the module.
The thruster, for its part, returned autonomously to a landing area located near the launch site. The mission took place fifty-two years to the day after Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin took their first steps on the moon.
Amazon employees thanked
“Everyone who has been in Space has said that it has changed them and that they are amazed, stunned, by the Earth and its beauty, but also its fragility, and I completely agree”, noted the founder of Amazon during a press conference held after his theft. ” [La Terre] is a fragile little thing and, when we evolve on this planet, we do damage, lamented Jeff Bezos. It’s one thing to recognize it, but it’s another thing to see with your own eyes how fragile she really is. “ The ex-CEO of Amazon also thanked “Every Amazon employee and every Amazon consumer because you gave for it all”.
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Blue Origin crew received congratulations from NASA as Richard Branson tweeted ” Good game “. The British billionaire had beaten Jeff Bezos flying into space on July 11 in a Virgin Galactic plane. But it had only reached 86 kilometers in altitude.
Jeff Bezos recently assured that the space race is not ” a competition “. “We are going to build a road to space so that our children and our grandchildren can build the future”, he said Tuesday.
Send humanity to space
The founder of Amazon created Blue Origin in 2000 with the goal of building floating space colonies, with artificial gravity, where millions of people could work and live. “It will take decades, it’s a big ambition, but big things are first small”, assured Jeff Bezos.
“The first one who was in Space was Yuri Gagarin, and that was a long time ago, he assured Monday on the NBC channel, in reference to the Soviet hero of the conquest of space in 1961. It’s about [ici] to build a road to space so that future generations can do incredible things there. “
Today, the company is developing a high thrust orbital rocket named New Glenn, but also a moon landing module in the hope of securing a contract with NASA and its Artemis program, and becoming the main private partner of the US space agency.
This first manned flight from Blue Origin was also the first carrying a paying passenger. Oliver Daemen replaced the original winner of the online auctions held in mid-July. The latter, who paid his ticket 28 million dollars, chose to fly on a future mission.
Elon Musk and SpaceX in the race
Wally Funk, who participated in the Mercury 13 female astronaut training program in the early 1960s, had to give up his dream of joining NASA after the program was disbanded by the US government.
Blue Origin plans two more launches this year and ” many others “ from 2022. “We had 7,500 bidders in more than 150 countries, there is obviously a great enthusiasm”, assured the chief executive of the company, Bob Smith, adding that the first flights “Leave at a very good price”.
A third billionaire, Elon Musk and his company SpaceX, will join the Space Race in September with an orbital expedition made up entirely of civilians aboard his Crew Dragon rocket. SpaceX has also teamed up with the company Axiom to take visitors aboard the International Space Station.
These sumptuous expeditions also attract criticism. “The Covid-19 has brought pain, suffering and death to Americans. And we should pay attention to the billionaires who travel to the edge of space? “, questioned the elected Democrat Hakeem Jeffries.