202 1 this summer may become a very important milestone in the history of commercial aerospace. Although Bezos has just crossed the Carmen line near the ground, which separates the atmosphere from space, it is still of epoch-making significance. His fierce private space competition with Branson and Musk will also be expected to push the annual income of the global space industry to double to 800 billion US dollars in 2030.
The curtain of commercial space tourism is slowly opening. Today, Harbin Institute of Technology Venture Capital takes you to systematically understand the whole process of Bezos' trip to the edge of space and his outlook on space tourism.
The first unmanned, all "civilian" flight.
Blue Origin: 5-year-old Bezos' Space Dream
As Brad Si Tong mentioned in Unlocking Amazon, Bezos was influenced by many aerospace topics when he was a child. He will read many science fiction novels in the library and launch simulated rockets or spaceships.
Bezos also said on his social media account: "I have been dreaming of space travel since I was five years old."
1969, at the age of five, he witnessed the whole process of Apollo 1 1 landing on the moon and became interested in space from then on.
Later, in high school, Bezos was invited by NASA to visit and brought a paper on the influence of low gravity environment on flies. During his college years, Bezos met jared O 'Neill, a physicist and space dreamer, at Princeton University where he studied, and served as the chairman of the school club "Students' Union for Space Exploration and Development" (SEDS).
In 2000, Bezos registered "Blue Origin Company" in private name. Bezos himself said that the company's mission is to improve the safety of space travel and strive to reduce its cost. Further, I hope that it will be possible for people to live in space one day, and the ultimate goal is to make the space dream of childhood come true.
Dream trip, and finally reach space.
In this launch, the plane was carrying four passengers. In addition to Bezos, the other three people include Bezos' younger brother Mark, 82-year-old former American female pilot Wally Fink, and the first "paid" space tourist received by Blue Origin Company: Dutch Oliver Derman, who is only 18 years old.
This launch process takes only 10 minutes and 20 seconds from countdown ignition, takeoff acceleration, spacecraft separation, reaching altitude limit and returning to the ground. This 10 minute is exactly what Bezos, who loves physics and space, has been waiting for all his life. After landing, he shouted, "Control Center, this is the best day of my life!" " "
After leaving the cabin, Bezos hugged his mother. Damon hugs his father. In the background, Feng Ke just walked out of the cabin and shouted excitedly!
At this point, the launch mission 16 of the blue origin new Sheppard rocket, which is also the first manned space flight, has finally been officially declared successful!
As a pioneer of commercial space tourism, Bezos's space trip set a new record for the age of astronauts. It is reported that in the space capsule carried by the "New Shepard" rocket, the space capsule was full of six people, and this time it took four people.
In the future, if the "New Shepard" rocket is going to start a commercial trip in space, the benefits brought by the full house are also worth looking forward to. It is reported that one person corresponds to a window, so that everyone can see the scene of space and the whole picture of the earth, which is very attractive to people who travel in space.
Follow-up tasks and prospects of space tourism
Commercial space travel
Now that the Blue Origin of Bezos has completed a truly successful commercial space journey, will this business be regarded as a brand-new attempt of commercial map in the next step? Lead more business tycoons with such dreams into space travel?
In fact, the origin of blue is not only to roam the edge of space at a height of about 100 km, but also to participate in the "Alsi Mies" project of NASA's manned moon landing program in the 1920s. The "New Glen Rocket" it developed is equivalent to the starship/overweight falcon of Space Exploration Technology Company. Although the progress is backward at present, I still hope to send humans back to the moon in 2024. In addition, Blue Origin is also developing a lunar lander.
The new Shepard rocket with blue origin can be reused, and it is a transportation system (VTVL) that can take off and land vertically. It consists of two main parts: a pressurized manned space capsule and a rocket. The rocket uses BE-3 engine and burns into liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen. The rocket can be completely controlled by the on-board computer and cannot be operated in the space capsule. The pressurized manned space capsule can carry six people when it is fully loaded, and is equipped with a launch escape system, which can be separated anywhere during the ascent. The internal volume of the capsule is about 15 cubic meters. This leaves enough space and imagination for business development.
But as far as scientific value is concerned, it is only a matter of time before human beings explore space. The development of space science and technology is not only top-down, but also private commercial forces should play a greater role in it.
Space travel, the future can be expected
But for this new industry, the prospect of 20021is expected to be broader, because many business giants will continue to pursue future technologies, including developing Mars rockets, establishing space-based Internet services and conducting space tourism.
Various forms of space tourism will give birth to a trillion-dollar new consumer market.
According to different purposes and costs, space tourism can be simply divided into three categories:
The first is suborbital tourism, that is, reaching a height of more than 80 kilometers from the surface, which is Virgin Galactic's tour this time. It allows passengers to stay in space for a short time and experience a short sense of weightlessness from the perspective of overlooking the earth. Virgin Galactic is essentially an aircraft with a rocket engine, so it has the most advantages in terms of technical maturity and cost. According to Virgin Galactic's calculation, the current price of suborbital tourism is about $250,000. If it can be reduced to RMB 200,000 in the future, it will inevitably attract a large number of middle classes to join it, thus giving birth to new consumption hotspots.
The second is the blue origin of Bezos. The spacecraft is launched by a liquid rocket to a height above the ground 100 km, so that it can conduct deeper space sightseeing and stay in a space hotel. Rocket Breakthrough, a British space travel agency, plans to start operating the Voyager Space Station Hotel in 2027, which will provide standard services for all five-star hotels, including spas, gyms, bars, cafes and restaurants.
The third is to take a trip to deep space. Axiomatic Space, an American private space company, will send two super-rich people to the space station in early 2022 through the space system of Space Exploration Technology Company. The two will stay in space for 8 days as planned, and the travel expenses of each person will be as high as 55 million US dollars, equivalent to 360 million yuan. With the lowering of the threshold for short-distance travel in space, deep travel in space will become a new involution market for the super-rich.
With the increasing demand for space tourism, it means that more and more capital will enter this field in the future.
According to the data of the United States Federal Aviation Administration, from 20 10 to 2020, the market size of the commercial aerospace industry will soar from 60 billion US dollars per year to more than 200 billion US dollars; As enterprises in this field begin to launch various space tourism products, related satellite and rocket companies will be able to obtain more financing to support their faster development.
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Although there are still many problems in realizing space tourism, people still believe that with the progress of science and technology and the development of space technology, the "popularization" of space tourism will become a reality in the near future, and large-scale space tourism will also be realized.