SpaceX and Blue Origin are in the race to make the best use of rockets which are a part of NASA’s suborbital reusable launch of vehicle flight contract. Yes, you heard it right! Not so long ago the idea of a man going to the moon or outer space was considered a fantasy! With the latest happenings and technology enhancements, people could now think of travelling and catching up flights to visit Mars and explore the outer space. One of the greatest news for the space travellers enthusiasts flourished, this week. Blue Origin, the reusable rocket company founded by Jeff Bezos announced that it will begin selling tickets for suborbital commercial space flights next year. According to reports, Blue Origin began to test its space vehicle successfully eight times, with the latest being on April 29, 2018. With Elon Musk revolutionizing the transport system on earth and space as well, this tech billionaire is also geared up! Space Exploration Technologies Corp., known as SpaceX is a private American aerospace manufacturer and space transportation services company headquartered in Hawthorne, California. Elon Musk led SpaceX is hitting all the headlines on future space travel, while, Jeff Bezos owned Blue Origin is catching up fast. At the AWS public sector summit, the Senior Vice President of Blue Origin, Rob Meyerson said Setting up colonies on the Moon and other planets are our primary target and we will need large payloads for surface landing. We are building the appropriate technology for that. However, Elon Musk led SpaceX has postponed its plans to send space tourists this year to circle the Moon due to technical and production challenges. SpaceX plans to start building mining, power and life support infrastructure to prepare for the first settlers that could arrive as soon as 2024. A Blue Origin Executive said the suborbital space tours will make a good market for us and our customers are very excited. Once we become the most-skilled reusable rocket company in the low-orbit, we can plan to go further, deeper into space.

There are speculations that the prices would be lower than the prices of Elon Musk SpaceX’s for carrying people to the moon in 2022. The cost of the SpaceX flight is around $ 35 million. Two people have apparently booked it, Musk didn’t say much about the two unidentified passengers. SpaceX is planning to make an uncrewed flight of its Dragon spacecraft to the space station this year and its first crewed flights are expected to happen in mid 2018. However, there are no further updates on this!

Currently, Blue Origin’s focus is on its New Shepard which is a fully reusable vertical takeoff, vertical landing (VTVL) space vehicle, consisting of a pressurised capsule atop a booster that can be reused for at least 25 times. The vehicle is named after the first American who went in space, Alan Shepard. It can carry six astronauts to spend approximately three minutes in a high quality, microgravity environment at an apogee of over 100 km.  April 30 marked the company’s first test flight of the New Shepard in 2018 and second flight of the New Shepard 2.0 spacecraft. Meyerson said Right now, we are living in a world where we need to throw away rockets within a year to ocean floors and millions of dollars go down the drain. With ‘New Shepard’, we can reuse the vehicle multiple times to significantly lower the travel cost.  

Speaking about the remarkable developments, Meyerson added space travel is a marathon, not a sprint. We are on the right track to write another chapter in the history of space travel.

However, Blue Origin isn’t the first company to go live with the tickets. Earlier, Virgin Galactic, a space flight company has booked hundreds of reservations for tickets at $ 250,000 each, while flight dates are yet to be confirmed! The story is different with Blue Origin, the company announced a policy of not taking reservations until its New Shepherd suborbital vehicle is ready for flights.

So, when are you grabbing your seat to the journey to space? Will it be SpaceX or will it be Blue Origin? Share your views in the comments section below!