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Jack Petruccione

Mr. Plinske

English II Honors

18 April 2017

Space, Inc.

The quest to conquer the stars has been an integral part of the human psyche for

millennia, and since the groundbreaking trips to the moon over the 1960s and 1970s, not much

has escaped Earths orbit. As a result of this, the public seems to have lost interest in the wonders

of the great beyond because nothing was really being done past the International Space Station.

With the recent cancellation of the Space Shuttle program, a new question has been posed: What

next? Over the past few years, the children inspired to dream by early astronauts and engineers

have taken the helm of privately owned space exploration corporations. Among these individuals

are Elon Musk, founder and CEO of Tesla Motors and SpaceX; Jeff Bezos, founder and CEO of

Amazon and Blue Origin; and Richard Branson, founder and CEO of Virgin Galactic, Virgin

Mobile, Virgin Atlantic, and others. These three individuals and their companies all share a

common goal, which is to make space travel more attainable to smaller organizations and the

common man. However, in recent years, a debate has arisen that questions whether the

advancements of the private sector into space exploration could become detrimental rather than

beneficial to society.

Rockets, and much of the science that surrounds them, have historically been affiliated

with high cost, high risk, and high barriers to entry. Elon Musk and his company, SpaceX, aim to

significantly cut down these obstacles, and change the publics perception of the attainability of

spacecraft. So far, they have succeeded. By being able to provide launch services for NASA, the
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Air Force, and other private telecommunications corporations at rates tens of millions of dollars

lower than its competitors, along with pioneering reusable rockets, SpaceX has become a

dominant force in the fledgeling launch services industry. Its main competitor, the United Launch

Alliance (ULA) is a conglomeration of departments of aerospace giants Boeing and Lockheed-

Martin. So far, ULAs dependency on Russian-made engines, and excessive commissions on

their contracts have cost them many important contracts, which were then assigned to SpaceX. In

addition, SpaceX does not need to construct an entirely new rocket --- which can cost tens to

hundreds of millions of dollars to make for each new mission to orbit. (Grush) Just recently, on

March 30th of 2017, SpaceX launched and relanded the first ever orbital main booster to be

reused after a prior launch. The Falcon 9 rockets previous mission took place in April of 2016,

and had since been refurbished and refueled for the second launch, which for the second time

took off from Cape Canaveral, Florida, and then landed on one of SpaceXs drone ships

floating in the Atlantic Ocean. (Grush) That particular launch that made aerospace history was

billed to a telecommunications company at a discounted rate, due to the increased risk of reusing

rockets in an unprecedented way. The decreased rate was about 40 million dollars, at a rough

30% discount from the normal fare of 61 million dollars. The largest cost to SpaceX for a launch

is a new main booster and fuselage, so if this cost were to be eliminated or severely reduced,

costs could be cut even lower than they already have been. As these rates decrease, one is left to

wonder just whose price range they may suddenly fall into. This has both an upside and a

downside, since a new weather satellite could easily have an ulterior motive if proper discretion

is not exercised by SpaceX and companies like it in the coming years. SpaceX has also not yet

addressed the growing issue of space junk, an issue that they are openly contributing to. The

upside is that underfunded organizations and even universities can more easily afford to conduct
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experiments in outer space that they would not have been able to do otherwise, and make

scientific advancement and network expansion a more frictionless process than ever before.

Blue Origin is a small, private space travel company based in the Seattle area. To quote

the front page of their website, Earth, in all its beauty, is just our starting place. We are of blue

origin, and here is where it begins. (Blue Origin) Since starting Blue Origin, Amazon founder

and CEO Jeff Bezos has been annually selling $1 billion worth of Amazon stock to fund the not-

yet-profitable startup. The initial and current focus of Blue Origin is to supply American

aerospace interests with an American rocket engine, in the form of the BE-4. After seeing ULAs

collapse over the issue of dependency on Russian-made engines, Bezos and Blue Origin have

been developing the BE-4 to end this dependency by 2019, thus monopolizing the engine market

for other, smaller companies. The enterprise is currently funded in part by selling its services as a

light payload launch service for scientific instruments or satellites and other small cargo. It plans

to shift completely over to tourism within 3 years, and launch the brand with New Shepard.

New Shepard is the reusable, suborbital vehicle produced by Blue Origin for their short tourist

flights. (Cofield) All of Blue Origins craft are named for a former Apollo astronaut (hence New

Shepard, New Glenn, etc.), because Bezos was deeply influenced by seeing those missions as a

child. Noting the success of SpaceXs booster recovery system, Blue Origin plans to adopt a

similar system for its tourism craft, which began initial and successful testing in the spring of

2016. The entire flight, from boarding to touchdown, will last approximately 41 minutes for six

passengers. Space tourism, as an untested industry, has inherent dangers. Blue Origin is planning

to minimize those by keeping both the craft and the flight plan very simple. Passengers will not

be accompanied by a crewmember, since the flight is so short, and two days of training are

mandatory. The capsule and its inhabitants will only spend roughly four minutes in
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weightlessness before reentering the atmosphere. In recent months, Blue Origin has strayed from

its tourism goals and unexpectedly announced the development of the heavy lift booster New

Glenn with the intention of competing directly with SpaceXs Falcon 9. SpaceX and Blue

Origin are nearly engaged in a space race for the title of the first space powerhouse of the

private sector. (Burns)

Aircraft are commonly thought to be limited by a gaseous atmosphere. Not anymore.

Richard Bransons Virgin Galactic was the original startup in the space tourism industry. After

selling thousands of advance tickets to celebrities and others for a once-in-a-lifetime ride on a

spaceplane to the edge of orbit, the first mission may finally be on the horizon. Most of Virgin

Galactics activity so far has been centered around small payload scientific launches. Among

their impressive list of clients are universities, corporate research and development teams, and

even NASA. The Virgin Galactics SpaceShipTwo can carry as many as six passengers and two

pilots into space. SpaceShipTwo, the completely reusable reentry vehicle used by Virgin Galactic

is carried by a secondary jet aircraft called WhiteKnightTwo that functions to bring the

spacecraft to an altitude and speed that allows the rocket motor the minimum distance and energy

requirement to reach space. In essence, SpaceShipTwo bears a striking similarity in function, but

not in size, to NASAs Space Shuttle Program, though with a far more efficient launch system in

WhiteKnightTwo. So far, Virgin Galactic has operated two fully reusable SpaceShipTwo craft.

The first of which was lost in a tragic accident in 2014. The accident resulted in the death of one

of the ships two crew and set back Virgin Galactics plans dramatically until this past year.

(Whitwam) The second ship, VSS unity, has been undergoing tests before it is slated to take the

first ever group of space tourists past the Krmn line, which demarcates the beginning of space.

The now semi-official astronauts will enjoy a few minutes of weightlessness, much like Blue
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Origins passengers. As exhibited by Virgin Galactics tragic loss of the SpaceShipTwo (VSS

Enterprise) test vessel, Space tourism can be risky. (Whitwam) These risks, however will be

minimized by all firms involved before any tourist is allowed on board. The practical

applications of high speed, long distance travel from one Earth location to another have yet to be

publicly explored by Virgin Galactic, though they have left the door open for themselves by

constructing Spaceport America as their base of operations and launch facility in Texas.

Whether we like it or not, space travel entering the private sector will be a major part of

the very near future. Sometimes NASA is just too slow for the ambitions of visionaries like Elon

Musk, Jeff Bezos, and Richard Branson. As they and their fellow dreamers were inspired by the

great astronauts and engineers before them, the current generation will be inspired by the self-

made individuals currently pioneering new technologies and solving never-before-seen

problems. In the long run, though there are risks that must be acknowledged in the time being,

making space travel more accessible for researchers, educators, and anybody else with an interest

in what lies beyond the atmosphere can only be and has only been beneficial for human society.

Eventually, humans will spread their wings across the galaxy, but this will take time. All goals

must be accomplished one small step at a time, but sometimes, a giant leap is made toward the

stars. Now is one such time.

Works Cited

Burns, Matt. "Blue Origin Reveals the New Glenn Takeoff and Landing Sequence in New

video." TechCrunch. TechCrunch, 07 Mar. 2017. Web. 16 Apr. 2017.

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Cofield, Calla. "No Bathrooms, No Barf Bags: What Blue Origin's Space Tourists Can Expect."

Space.com. N.p., 11 Apr. 2017. Web. 16 Apr. 2017.

Grush, Loren. "SpaceX Makes Aerospace History with Successful Launch and Landing of a

Used Rocket." The Verge. The Verge, 30 Mar. 2017. Web. 16 Apr. 2017.

Whitwam, Ryan. "Virgin Galactic's New VSS Unity Spacecraft Completes Test

Flight."Extremetech.com. N.p., 7 Dec. 2016. Web. 15 Apr. 2017.

"Homepage." Blue Origin. Blue Origin, n.d. Web. 16 Apr. 2017.