Two of the richest men in the world are among the first tourists to go into space. Billionaires have been charging their own space companies for years and in July of this year they were the first to travel in spaceships more for the fun and money they can make in the future than for scientific research – the only way to get there to get even then still space.
Billionaire Richard Branson, founder of the Virgin group of companies, which includes a multitude of companies, made his suborbital flight on July 11 in a Virgin Galactic spacecraft.
The vehicle reached an altitude of 86 km and while the feat is anything but a science fiction space trip, the crew even experienced a few seconds of weightlessness – without the feeling of weight – something very few on Earth have ever felt in history to have. . The height reached was enough for everyone to be convinced that the earth is really round.
That Tuesday (20) it was the turn of Jeff Bezos, the founder of Amazon. In New Shepard, the billionaire and three other people reached an altitude of 107 kilometers on a Blue Origin flight.
Tesla founder Elon Musk does not have a flight date yet, but his company SpaceX flew NASA astronauts to the International Space Station last year.
SpaceX flights are more complex than Blue Origin and Virgin Galactic’s. Vehicles don’t just climb to a height and return to Earth: they manage to maintain orbit and do something much more like a journey.
By the end of the year, SpaceX is slated to dispatch the Inspiration4 mission with four civilians who will spend a few days in orbit.