Let’s Take A Tour of Space!

Zephan Deepu, Layout Editor, Writer

Imagine if you and your family could go to space without any experience in NASA. You would get to look back to the Earth, see the sun, literally flying out from Earth’s orbit! Plus, you’re just a tourist with no business in going to space! That’s never going to happen, or will it? In fact, it is and Amazon creator, Jeff Bezos, is planning to launch this idea.

To start, Jeff Bezos is funding a company called the Blue Origin, which is the company planning this venture. It has been working hard to launch this new idea, thanks to Jeff Bezos’s funding in April 2017. Blue Origin just had their second test launch, which reached a height 106,984 meters up in the air. They had a test dummy inside the capsule to see the effects on it, and it seemed to stay intact. This picture shown is how the capsule will look on the inside:

The rocket capsule is sixty feet tall and is fitted for six people per rocket. The seats are placed so tourists are laying down and facing the ceiling. One problem for the Blue Origin and their rocket though is that they now have some competitors such as Virgin Galactic and XCOR Aerospace, creating competition to start space tourism. So far, the tests have been pretty successful for this project with no bad experiences. Jeff Bezos is fully devoted to this project, as he is funding Blue Origin $1,000,000,000 to ensure that the testing becomes a reality.

Most people are probably wondering when space tourism will begin? Well, Jeff Bezos is looking in 2019 to start selling tickets, and as you can imagine, these tickets for space would be pretty pricey. Virgin Galactic is charging $250,000 and XCOR Aerospace is charging $150,000, Blue Origin will be the cheapest of the bunch. Blue Origin is investing a lot of time and money in this project and is hoping to have a very successful project.

    Imagine if you and your family could go to space without any experience in NASA. Do you really need to imagine this, or is this already a reality?  Are you ready to travel out of planetary boundaries? Well, this dream is almost real, so maybe one day, you can have the chance to tour the wonders of space.

 

Works Cited

“New Shepard.” Blue Origin, www.blueorigin.com/new-shepard.

Howell, Elizabeth. “Blue Origin: Quiet Plans for Spaceships.” Space.com, Space.com, 15 May 2018, www.space.com/19584-blue-origin-quiet-plans-for-spaceships.html.