In our previous blogs we have discussed two incredible icons who have changed the way we look at our world today. Individually we have explored Elon Musk's brand Space X compared to Richard Branson brand Virgin Galactic. We have looked at each company under different factors like safety, the economy, the environment and what they have planned for the future. Which one did you find the most interesting? Richard Branson's legendary company was designed simply to book online flights to go to space. He had been the creator of the well known airline Virgin, in 2004 he decided to introduce Virgin Galactic. (Route 3000,2020) Since the fatal accident, where a co-pilot was killed on a flight test in October 2014 due to piloting error, the company has taken on a lot more safety precautions. The spacecraft has since been updated with new improved models called the spaceship unity. The aircraft aims to take passengers on an experience 60 miles above the earth before descending. Virgin Galactic has successfully managed to sell tickets to well known celebrities. Selling 600 tickets for a price of 250,000, some of this money will be returned to the government. (Route 3000,2020) This will evidently improve tourism towards America as anyone can buy tickets and travel around space. Travelling the unknown can be exciting and mesmerising but will be environmentally detrimental. Space travel definitely has negative effects and can leave a large carbon footprint. Virgin Atlantic have plans for their next mission to take you from Los Angeles to Tokyo in under 2 hours! This journey would normally take 12 hours. (Route 3000,2020) This will definitely revolutionise the transport industry! Elon Musk's company SpaceX has “taken off” since the start of 2002, literally. The main goal for Space X is to create reusable rockets. Space X have gone to many lengths to prove they are a safe space craft company. Space X went to measures to destroy part of its rocket the Falcon 9 as part of the crucial safety test “Crew Dragon”. (Route 3000,2020) The spacecraft can safely dispatch from the rock proving it can handle catastrophic failure. The test was a success, within two minutes the capsule was dispatched. This was the last major test before NASA Astronauts travelled to the international Space Station. (Route 3000,2020) SpaceX has spent considerably less than any other spacecraft company. Elon Musk designed the Falcon Nine Rocket so that it can land saving costs. No extra funding will be needed by the government improving the economy. Being environmentally friendly is extremely important for Elon Musks. He always wants to be efficient with resources by creating a reusable rocket. Elon Musk's next plan is to be able to design a Rocket that can refuel on Mars. He believes by 2050 humans will have established a new city on Mars! (Route 3000,2020) Thank you for following Route3000 through our short, yet exciting journey! It’s been great fun putting these blogs together for you to read. We hope you enjoyed the ride as much as we did! – The Route3000 Team. Don't forget to like us on Instagram, Facebook and Twitter! References Used:
Route 3000 (2020) Welcome to Space Travel. Available at: https://route3000.weebly.com/space-travel/welcome-to-space-travel#comments (Accessed at 1st April 20200 Route 3000 (2020) Safety of Space Travel. Available at : https://route3000.weebly.com/space-travel/safety-of-space-travel (Accessed at 1st April 2020) Route 3000 (2020) Economic Benefits of Space Travel. Available at : https://route3000.weebly.com/space-travel/economic-benefits-of-space-travel (Accessed at 1st April 2020) Route 3000 (2020) Environmental Benefits of Space Travel. Available at: https://route3000.weebly.com/space-travel/environmental-benefits-of-space-travel (Accessed at 1st April 2020)
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What does the future hold for Space X and Virgin Galactic? So, as you have been reading over the last few weeks about what these unbelievable companies are about and what they have been up to, and, now we are going to tell you where they are going in the future. Let’s get down to it, where are these companies going in the future?? Well, as we know the goal of Space X is to get reusable rocket technology for rockets, and, the goal for Virgin Galactic is to create commercial space travel as a once in a lifetime opportunity for people. Imagine having the option to just fly to space, amazing right? Let’s keep going, how far away are we from these companies achieving these goals? Well they are a lot closer than you’d think. Both plans could well be achieved by this year! (Kettley, 2019). Once these goals are achieved Space X CEO Elon Musk has a grand plan to develop a rocket designed to be able to stop and refuel on MARS. Sounds mad but we well know Musk is no normal thinker, he has always been under the impression that by 2050 humans will have established a city on Mars (Brown, 2019). Don’t believe me? Hear from the man himself. Moving on where to we see Virgin Galactic going after this normalised spaced travel gets up and running? There is plans being put in place for the company to not only use its power for space travel but also for travel on Earth. When looking at the company’s first earning report, we can see the plans that could take you from Los Angeles to Tokyo in just two hours (Shapiro, 2020), a journey which usually takes 12+ hours with stop overs needed. This will revolutionise the transport industry and completely blow some airlines out of the water, but let’s not get too excited yet even though it’s hard not to as we never know what the future holds! Don't forget to like us on Instagram, Facebook and Twitter! References Used:
Express (2019) Space predictions for 2020: SpaceX and Virgin Galactic will revolutionise space tourism Available at: https://www.express.co.uk/news/science/1222428/Space-predictions-2020-SpaceX-Virgin-Galactic-space-tourism-Asgardia-space-news (Accessed 26 March 2020) TechInsider, 2017. Watch Elon Musk Reveal SpaceX's Most Detailed Plans To Colonize Mars. [Online] Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zSv0Y7qrzQM [Accessed 26 March 2020]. Yahoo Finance (2020) Virgin Galactic has a plan to grow its business beyond space tourism Available at: https://www.inverse.com/article/51291-spacex-here-s-the-timeline-for-getting-to-mars-and-starting-a-colony (Accessed 26 March 2020) Space Travel Environmental Benefits (or lack of.........) Let’s face the harsh facts – space travel may not be the most environmentally friendly thing. Although it serves as an exciting opportunity for humans to explore the unknown and to stretch our knowledge and capability, it’s hard to do the best for our environment while doing so. There is no doubt that space travel will have some negative effects on our environment. Space tourism has been described as an unnecessary waste of resources by a small group of people and companies (DigitalTrends, 2019). Space launches can leave a very large carbon footprint in the earth due to solid rocket fuels burning. However, it is worthy to note that a lot of rockets are propelled by liquid hydrogen fuel, therefor producing ‘clean’ water vapour exhaust. Due to their infrequency, rocket launches impact on our environment is currently far less impactful than aviation’s impact. One other environmental issue associated with space travel is ‘space junk’. This is where satellites and other related objects get left in space, therefor polluting the air (ScienceFocus, 2020). Taking a look at Space X’s Falcon Heavy rocket launch, the space enthusiastic company set out to make a reusable rocket, therefor being efficient with resources. On the other hand, this doesn’t change the fact that most rockets are 95% fuel. This means a huge amount of fuel and carbon content is released into the atmosphere (SmithsonianMagazine, 2018). Making space travel environmentally friendly is quite the challenge for companies today. It remains a question if space travel will ever evolve into a more environmentally considerate way. Don't forget to like us on Instagram, Facebook and Twitter! References Used:
DigitalTrends, 2019. Space tourism is coming, and it's going to wreak havoc on Earth's atmosphere. [Online] Available at: https://www.digitaltrends.com/dtdesign/environmental-costs-of-space-tourism/ [Accessed 12 March 2020]. ScienceFocus, 2020. Are space launches bad for the environment?. [Online] Available at: https://www.sciencefocus.com/space/are-space-launches-bad-for-the-environment/ [Accessed 12 March 2020]. SmithsonianMagazine, 2018. Is SpaceX Being Environmentally Responsible?. [Online] Available at: https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/spacex-environmentally-responsible-180968098/ [Accessed 12 March 2020]. How can they give back? When you think of the space market there is three main bodies of the market. Virgin Galactic, Space X and NASA. These are all respected members of their market and have incredible credibility. Whilst they are doing amazing things I will be focusing on how Virgin Galactic and Space X help the economy and comparing them to NASA financially. Space X has been incredible on their mission on help people experience space travel for a much cheaper price than it is. Space X has spent 250 million less than NASA with their space shuttle. This is considerable amount for the government to be spending less on space travel wherever they can. (Johnson, 2018) When Elon musk proposed that they can land Key parts of their falcon nine rocket. This will be reducing costs and saving money. This will mean they won’t need to be funded extra money by the government which will ultimately mean helping the economy grow. (cobb, 2019) In contrast to Space X, Virgin Galactic also has the same mission to cut the costs of the project when can which will reduce the funding by the government. They also have sold a number of tickets to many recognisable names such as Justin Bieber and Leonardo DiCaprio. They have sold about 600 tickets with a whopping price tag 250,000. Although most of the money will go back to Richard Branson and the company some of the money will be going to the government also. (BBC, 2020) Since Virgin Galactic is a public space company anyone can buy tickets from across the globe. This could create tourism towards America creating more tourism in America and more money in the tourism sector. (Etherington, 2019) Don't forget to like us on Instagram, Facebook and Twitter! References Used
BBC, 2020. BBC. [Online] Available at: https://www.bbc.com/news/business-51639326 [Accessed 5 March 2020]. cobb, w. W., 2019. The conversation. [Online] Available at: https://theconversation.com/how-spacex-lowered-costs-and-reduced-barriers-to-space-112586 [Accessed 5 March 2020]. Etherington, D., 2019. techcrunch. [Online] Available at: https://techcrunch.com/2019/10/24/virgin-galactic-becomes-the-first-public-space-tourism-company-on-monday/ [Accessed 5 March 2020]. Johnson, B., 2018. the hill. [Online] Available at: https://thehill.com/blogs/congress-blog/technology/375815-how-spacex-embodies-the-importance-of-the-free-market [Accessed 5 March 2020]. Space X Space X has demonstrated many safety measures while proving their rocket is safe. Most recently On January 19th 2020, SpaceX blew up part of its rocket the Falcon 9 as part of a crucial safety test to demonstrate how the rocket will handle a failure. Usually the destruction of a rocket while the rocket is on a mission means it is a failure? Not for the Crew dragon crucial safety test. This demonstration took place in mid-air after take-off. This is part of SpaceX's ability to prove it can handle catastrophic failure within the rocket. Space X has developed a new capsule called the Crew Dragon where the spacecraft safely separates from the rocket. The rocket was Launched from the J.F Kennedy Space Centre which appeared to be a success. After two minutes the crew dragon capsule dispatched and destructed. No passengers only dummies were on this test. This is the last major test SpaceX will take before NASA permits it astronauts to the International Space Station. Virgin Galactic Research from previous events happening in SpaceShipTwo experienced a fatal incident with the killing of a co-pilot during a flight test in October of 2014 (CNBC, 2019). As the crash was caused by piloting error the company updated the spacecraft and has spent seven developing new and improved models called the Spaceship unity. It is seen that the Space shuttle has had a total of only two accidents in 135 flights which doesn’t show huge impact on the virgin galactic safety. Question may arise as to is this new spacecraft as safe as the last or will there be more fatal accidents in the future? The company claims that the crash was caused by piloting error. This new aircraft is designed to take passengers can experience up to 60 miles above the atmosphere of the earth before descending. References Used:
ABCnews (2020) SpaceX intentionally blowing up Falcon 9 rocket for safety test . Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-g1W3DXUsnM [Accessed 26th February 2020] CNBC (2019) analyst buy virgin galactic stock because risk is misunderstood. Available at: https://www.cnbc.com/2019/11/05/analyst-buy-virgin-galactic-stock-because-risk-is-misunderstood.html [Accessed on 26th February 2020] The Christian Science monitor (2016) How has virgin galactic made their latest spaceship safer? Available at: https://www.google.de/amp/s/www.csmonitor.com/layout/set/amphtml/Technology/2016/0220/H ow-has-Virgin-Galactic-made-their-latest-spaceship-safer [Accessed on 25th February 2020] Virgin Galactic and SpaceX: What are they all about? Where do we start when it comes to these two icons in the corresponding image? Elon Musk has been described as this generations Sir Richard Branson (Fingleton, 2017) and now they’re crossing paths in the emerging area of transport particularly in space. So, who is doing what? Well in this blog over the coming weeks we will see what Elon Musk’s SpaceX and Sir Richard Branson’s Virgin Galactic are doing in transport to and from space. We will look at factors based around safety, the economy, the environment, and, where these companies are heading in the future with their wonderfully crazy ideas which are already in the works. Where to start? Keep reading to find out! Imagine a time where you can go online book a flight and go to space, sounds ridiculous right? Not to Sir Richard Branson it doesn’t. This is why in 2004 he decided to create another company related to Virgin called Virgin Atlantic. How is this going to happen is the biggest question, well follow this blog over the coming weeks and you will find out. But for now, hear from the man himself on what this company means to him as they embark on this wonderful journey. “I think it is possible for ordinary people to be extraordinary” - Elon Musk Next up we will be dealing with the amazing company SpaceX ran by the weird and wonderful Elon Musk. SpaceX was founded in 2002 and have been making history in the world of space exploration ever since under the guidance of Elon Musk. Their main goal is to create reusable launch vehicles for the future of space. We are looking forward to creating more content on this aspiring business but for now, here’s where they are at according to the man himself Elon Musk. References Used:
Energy Broker (2017) Elon Musk: This generation’s Richard Branson? Available at: https://blog.energybroker.ie/elon-musk-this-generations-richard-branson (Accessed 16 February 2020) How Stuff Works (2020) History of Virgin Galactic Available at: https://science.howstuffworks.com/virgin-galactic1.htm (Accessed 16 February 2020) Space X (2020) Space X News Available at: https://www.spacex.com/news (Accessed 16 February 2020) Virgin Galactic (2020) Virgin Galactic Home Available at: https://www.virgingalactic.com (Accessed 16 February 2020) |