S PACE TOURIS M
single asteroid of the right type would be worth a fortune if brought to Earth. There are two major companies
Virgin Galactic also has its sights set on operating long-haul air travel above the Earth’s atmosphere
leading the way in this field. One is California-based Deep Space Industries, which has partnered with the government of Luxembourg. The other is Washington State-based Planetary Resources, which plans to mine metals for use in extraterrestrial construction and spacecraft components. The latter suggests there are around 16,000 near-Earth asteroids, containing two trillion tonnes of water. Back at SpaceX, Elon Musk could well
do with some of that rocket propellant. His cleverest boffins have designed the Falcon Heavy rocket, which they claim is three times more powerful than its predecessor, the Falcon 9. Musk states the new model can not only propel long-haul commercial flights up above the Earth’s atmosphere, or spaceflights around the Moon inside the Dragon 2 craſt, but will also eventually transfer cargo and passengers to Mars, Venus, even Jupiter and Saturn.
bus ine s s tr a v el ler .c om
33
“We should have
a lunar base by now. What the hell’s going on?” Musk said at the International
Astronautical Congress in September 2017.
“And then, of course, Mars, and becoming a multi-planet
species. Beats the hell out of being a
single-planet species.” Musk has the mind-bogglingly ambitious
target date of 2024 to send humans to the red planet. First, in 2022, there will be an unmanned spaceship to “confirm water resources, identify hazards and put in place initial power, mining, and life support infrastructure”. Two years later the manned mission is
scheduled to follow. “Ten we will build up the base, starting with one ship, then multiple ships, then start building up the city, then making the city bigger. And over time terraforming Mars, and making it a really nice place to be.” Much of Musk’s zeal stems from his fear
that our planet might eventually succumb to an extinction caused by an asteroid strike
CLOCKWISE FROM FAR LEFT: New Shepard, Blue Origin’s launch system, lifts off in June 2016; the interior of SpaceX’s Dragon 2 spacecraft; Virgin Galactic’s SpaceShipTwo during its first powered flight; and Jeff Bezos, billionaire founder of Blue Origin
or a global pandemic. Should this happen, he argues, colonising Mars will ensure the human race doesn’t die out completely. Despite all the promises (some might
call them pipe dreams) from billionaires Branson, Bezos, Musk et al, space tourism has so far been a niche activity for the super- rich. There have only been seven amateur astronauts in space so far. The very first was American investment
specialist Dennis Tito who, in 2001, paid Russia’s space agency US$20 million to visit the International Space Station and spend a week orbiting the Earth. “The beauty of private spaceflight [is]
you can be goofy if you want to,” Tito said in a BBC documentary that showed him aboard the station sipping a mocktail. “There’s no one to criticise you. You’re paying your own bill. You’re not having this trip on government money. So there’s a lot more freedom.”
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