Earlier this year the public was exposed to the space race between 3 Billionaires that revealed just how  competitive the current space race can get. So let’s examine what is space flight technically, how is it being used currently, who are the main players thus far, and the impact it has on people currently and in the future.

What

Space flight is the application of astronautics to fly spacecraft into or through outer space, either with or without humans.  Space is typically described as 60 miles (100 kilometers) above earth and commonly described as the Karman line.  Believe it or not the first realistic theoretical thought of space flight happened in 1861 from William Leitch’s essay “Journey through space” that proposed the use of rockets to achieve space flight.  However, like many things in science it took over 60 years to make another leap in Rocket Technology.  Robert H. Goddard’s publication in 1919 on the “Method of Reaching Extreme Altitudes” laid out the improvements for to liquid fuel Rockets to allow for interplanetary travel in the vacuum of space.  And like many things in America, in order to really get things going you need to secure a defense contract and be in the middle of war to get funding.  In this case, World War 1 had started and Goddard secured initial funding but was put on hold after the 1919 Armistice by Germany.  However, Goddard was able to launch his first liquid Fueled Rocket in 1926.  I think you can see where this is going because generations of wars from World War II to the Cold War really helped propel rocket technology to the modern times.  For an entire history of Rocket development, I recommend this book by A history of Rocketry and Space Travel. Which brought us to the initial Space Race with NASA putting John Glen into orbit and eventually that landed Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin on the Moon via the Apollo 11 mission in 1969.

So what is a rocket?  According to John F. Kennedy he compared the rocket to 10,000 automobiles with there accelerators on the floor.  According to NASA, the Saturn V moon rocket had generated 34.5 million newtons (7.6 million pounds) of thrust at launch which creates more power than 85 Hoover Dams.  That’s a lot of gas (and money given the current price of gas), but there are a few things the Rocket has to overcome to make it to space.  Y’all remember Sir Issac Newton AKA “Apple man” right?  Well let’s clarify .

  1. A space rocket obviously doesn’t go anywhere unless you start its engine. As Newton said, still things stay still unless forces act on them (and moving things keep moving at a steady speed unless a force acts to stop them).  Like
  2. Newton said that when a force acts on something, it makes it accelerate (go faster, change direction, or both). So when you fire up your rocket engine, that makes the force that accelerates the rocket into the sky and eventually into space.
  3. Rockets move upward by firing hot exhaust gas downward, This is what’s often called “action and reaction” (another name for Newton’s third law of motion): the hot exhaust gas firing down (the action) creates an equal and opposite force (the reaction) that speeds the rocket up. The action is the force of the gas, the reaction’s the force acting on the rocket—and the two forces are of equal size, but pointing in opposite directions, and acting on different things (which is why they don’t cancel out). Information courtesy of http://www.explainthatstuff.com

Information courtesy of www.explainthatstuff.com

However, in order to there to be a opposite reaction and the rocket engine to push against something it requires a gas.  Which is abundant on earth, but the vacuum of space proves lacks all the gas.  So in order to overcome this issue space rockets also have to pack there own gas source to allow the rocket engine to operate properly.  And once you have an engine that can generate enough force to exceed the escape velocity of earth (25,000 mph, 7 miles per second ,or 40,000 km/h), you now have a viable space rocket.  Let’s hope the Houston Rockets can follow this same recipe and eventually get back to the finals.  Miss you Olajawon.

How

As of now there are quite a few things in the works globally that involve space exploration.  For instance 3 countries (U.S., China, and United Arab Emirates) have planned exploration missions to Mars.  NASA is also planning a mission to launch a new telescope to reveal more about exoplanets (planet that orbits a star outside the solar system), sorry Pluto.  Additionally, NASA is also planning the launch spacecraft to eight asteroids that circle near Jupiter.  Russia is planning a lunar landing mission at the southpole and Kazakhstan is actually planning to a mission to clean up space junk that has become a growing problem since man has first enter space.   All of this is very cool and relevant in the realm of science and exploration but let’s be honest this isn’t the real reason why you are reading this article or why I am writing it.  Let’s talk about how a particularly 3 uber rich men are using space technology currently in the private space industry.

Who

Space X

Space X is the brain child of electric vehicle billionaire Elon Musk, who as we all know is a rather outspoken (Especially on Twitter) CEO of Tesla.  The company was originally formed as an idea of Musk to send a spacecraft to Mars (creatively called the “Mars Oasis”), that would send a experimental greenhouse and spacecraft to Mars and back.  Musk hoped the project would spark renewed interest by the US government, but given the costs Musk pulled out and decided to found SpaceX. 

The thought behind SpaceX is that the cost of space travel with humans could be lowered by developing reusable rockets.  In 2020 it became the first private company to fly humans to the international space station (and plans for more that will set you back about 55 million bucks).  It also has plans to launch satellites into orbit with the hopes of lowering the price and increasing the availability of broadband to rural customers under the project name Starlink.  How Altruistic.

Eventually, Musk believes that humanities future hinges on the ability to colonize Mars.  In fact in 2020 Musk announced that he wanted to establish a colony of 1 million people on Mars by 2050.  This would be accomplished by flying them on 1000 Space X starships that are currently being developed.  Very ambitious.

Blue Origin

Blue Origin comes from the vision of Amazon billionaire Jeff Bezos.  Like Musk, Bezos wants to use recycled rockets to achieve space exploration.  (On a side note, I love the eco conscious outlook for this one thing but I think there are some other ways to prevent our planet from dying).  The company was founded in 2000 and little was known about the company until about 2003.

Currently Blue Origin has tested it’s suborbital rocket called New Shepard in which customers could pay to visit the edge of space in a pressurized vessel to experience weightlessness.  All of this for the low low price of 26 million USD.  To be fair who knows if Bezos or his brother paid, it’s his ship.  The company is also developing a ship called the New Glenn to deliver payloads to low orbit stations.

Finally Bezos in 2019 Bezos released plans for a lunar lander called Blue Moon.  The hope is that in 2024 the company will be able to establish a “sustained human presence on the moon”.  However Bezos was bested again by Musk in which Space X won a lunar exploration bid from NASA over Blue Origin.  The decision is currently being contested.  Since Bezos stepped down as CEO of Amazon he stating that his rocker company is his “most important work”.

Virgin Galactic

Virgin Galactic is the manifestation of billionaire entrepreneur Sir Richard Branson.  It differs from Space X and Blue Origin in that it focuses on suborbital Flight instead of true space flight.  The mode of flight is also drastically different in that instead of using a Rocket to escape Earth’satmosphere, Virgin Galactic is using a duel fuselage jet to achieve suborbital flight.  In principle the jet called White knight Two flies to 50,000 feet.  (Really White Knight Two? Just type in “who are the white knights” on Google.) From there, the ship detaches and glides for a few seconds before firing up its rocket motor and beginning a near-vertical ascent to about 300,000 feet.

In a rush and as a show of will, Branson one uped Bezos by one day and launched the KKK knight into orbit with Branson on it 50 miles high.  Afterwards Virgin Galactic announced it will be accepting passengers for similar flights in 2021 and 2022.  As of now they have more than 600 tickets sold for the more affordable price of 250,000.  After which costumers will be able to get out for a few minutes in the cabin to experience weightlessness.

 Virgin Galactic uses reusable space craft in a effort to make the flight more accessible and economical.  It recently has unveiled the VSS that in the future hopes to shuttle tourists to space hotels, transport researchers to floating labs, or provide lightning-fast transcontinental flights. In 2017, it spun off a company called Virgin Orbit, which is working to send satellites into orbit using a similar air-launch system.

The Impact

As of now the impact of the current space race has had some impact on the current zeitgeist and social media.  Hell just check Twitter. For those who can afford it, space travel brings entirely new possibilities on what future exploits one can get into.  Scientifically, these provide other avenues to accomplish things that NASA has planned before such as human travel to Mars and in some cases has helped NASA in some more basic exploits.  However, how does is this exploration and drive for science perceived in a broader sense.

Warning: for the rest of this article I am going to get a bit political, so if science mixed with politics isn’t your cup of tea feel free to stop reading.

When writing this article it was impossible to not acknowledge the obvious, the fact that the three main players in the current space race are Uber billionaires.   Well maybe not Richard Branson (a mere 4 billion dollars net worth, come on Richard!!), but Jeff Bezos (205 Billion dollars) and Elon Musk (291 Billion dollars) are apart of the top .01 percent of the richest in the world.  So let’s be clear, they are not operating in the same space as the other 99 percent of us and if anyone thinks they are doing this with altruistic intentions I have some land on Mars to sell you.

Musk and Bezos both mention to expand humans capacity for space flight and interstellar travel to the moon and Mars.  Raise of hands to anyone who thinks they can afford millions of dollars to fly to space?  Branson is atleast alittle more forthright in that he wishes to facilitate space travel to space hotels.  Sort of like a intergalactic Uber.  It still will set you back a few million but hey how much is a good time worth?  So already we have a divide between who can and cannot travel to space, and like just about everything in a capitalistic society and in the immortal words of WUTANG; cash rules everything around me C.R.E.AM. get the money Dolla Dolla bill y’all.

One interesting take away I also got was particularly from Musk who mentioned that he felt humanities future was in space and particularly Mars.  It’s not hard to wonder why given the mass devastation happening in the current global environment.  Between climate changing at a seemingly exponential pace, the intensity of catastrophic weather events, and that we are currently living in a mass extinction event; it’s not hard to come to the conclusion that human life on Earth could be royally f#$ked in the future.

The Irony of this is that these companies have been on of the biggest contributors to climate change.  Amazon’s carbon output is on the order of 691 metric tons, while Tesla won’t even release it’s carbon footprint data, but a modest report is showing that the supposed green company isn’t as green as we would hope.  It’s almost like a drug dealer complaining about the violence that comes with the trade and picking up and setting up shot on a new block.

Finally as what any shrewd entrepreneur would need to do is expand and capitalize on there market.  In some cases it is capitalizing on the IP space ( looking at you Bill and Melinda Gates), or a physical space (colonization).  In this case it’s both.  Musk has already tried to establish Space X’s control over certain parts of Mars, although international laws prohibits it.  If not prevented Space X could not only Establish it’s own colony, set of laws, and sovereignty, but also profit as well.  However, you can also make money off the travel I suppose or innovation from space travel. 

Conclusion

The new space race that is currently being funded by government and the private sector opens the door to more exploration, scientific endeavors, engineering revolutions, and of course exploitation.  It obvious with NASA’S budget being a tenth of the networth of Bezos and Musk that billionaires could contribute immensely.  However, let’s understand why they are interested and some of the real reasons why space is now a priority again. which should be ringing all types of alarms for you if a bunch of billionaires want to leave Earth now.   So with that I leave you with the words of one Jeff Bezos “I want to thank every Amazon employee, and every Amazon customer because you guys paid for all this,”.