Abstract: On December 26, 2021, The Economist published a signed article by Professor Weixin Jiao from the School of Earth and Space Sciences of Peking University. In this article titled “Stiffer Competition in Space Travel Opens up New Opportunities for Commercial Spaceflight”, the author commented on TRON founder Justin Sun’s recent announcement of his entry into commercial spaceflight. According to Prof. Jiao, the march of Justin Sun, a linchpin in digital technologies, into the commercial spaceflight industry will serve as a great boost to space travel and engage more people in space exploration.

Read on for the article:

In the latter half of 2021, low earth orbits (LEO) have been more than “crowded”. On July 11, Sir Richard Branson, founder of Virgin Galactic, completed the first LEO space travel in his Virgin Galactic rocket plane known as “Unity”. On the back of this, Blue Origin’s spacecraft rounded out its first manned LEO flight on July 20, with its seat for the first crewed spaceflight sold at a whopping $28 million.

On December 22, Blue Origin announced its partnership with TRON founder Justin Sun, who was confirmed to be the winner of the first auction. It is worth our attention that, shortly after this, Justin Sun initiated a charity campaign, “Sea of Stars”, where five crewmates will be chosen to fly with him on a new Shepard flight to space in the fourth quarter in 2022. Joining other fellow entrepreneurs, Sun has also entered the commercial spaceflight field.

As a leading light in digital technologies, Sun’s entry into commercial spaceflight will be a great boost to the popularization of space travel and incentivizes more people to engage themselves in space exploration. As he put it, “Earth is where the chapter of human life starts for our future generations, not where it ends”. Human beings have now entered a new era of space travel and commercial spaceflight.

I. Entrepreneurs Join Space Travel in Droves

Judging from the development over the past decade, the world’s space industry has been growing steadily, with commercial spaceflight gradually rising to be the staple and leader.  Globally speaking, mainstream spacefaring nations are constantly developing their space technology while private capitals and the general public are increasingly more attracted by this industry. This happy conjunction has pushed commercial spaceflight to be more affordable, diversified, and scalable.

Thanks to the development of commercial spaceflight, civilian space travel for the general public is gradually becoming a reality, spearheaded by Blue Origin and Virgin Galactic. Besides, SpaceX also has its first lunar journey planned out, and commercial space stations in the U.S. are tapping into space tourism.

Back in the day, space exploration was not possible without nationwide efforts, but now, this “space race” with space travel at the core has seen a lower threshold, and entrepreneurial entry into space is on the rise.

According to Carissa Christensen, CEO of BryceTech, the aerospace industry was considered highly risky. But now, it has become a mainstream field for venture capitalists. “They choose this industry not because it’s cool, but because they believe that this sector is highly rewarding.”

This is why super-rich people are actively involved in this sector. For example, Elon Musk, the real-life “Iron Man”, has invested $10 million in SpaceX before signing a contract with the government; Amazon founder Jeff Bezos has been plowing money into Blue Origin for 20 years; Richard Branson has also been investing heavily in Virgin Galactic; Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen is aiming to build the world’s largest aircraft, Stratolaunch, to carry air-launch-to-orbit rockets, etc.

Commercialization comes hand in hand with the evolution of human spaceflight, and is tipped to bring the growth of the aerospace industry to the next level while giving a strong impetus to the sphere of commercial spaceflight. As early as in June 2010, the U.S. published the National Space Policy of the United States of America, where it sets out the nation’s commitment to offering the commercial world more access to space activities, honoring the cooperative, rather than competitive, relationship between the government and the commercial sector, and promoting commercial space activities with the use of incentive programs.

In the meantime, amid a new round of technological and industrial revolution on a global basis, the Internet is packing quite a punch on the spaceflight front as a whole, with commercial spaceflight in particular. The crossover of spaceflight and the Internet has in recent years become a new pattern in the growth of commercial spaceflight. Evidently, the Internet is disrupting the sphere of spaceflight with entrepreneurs assuming an increasingly important role.

II. Types of Space Tourism

The market for space tourism is vast with great untapped potential. Though yet to be popularized, space tourism is seeing an ever-growing market demand as it is known by more. There are several types of space tourism today, with four major ones as explained below:

1. Traveling on gravity-free flights

Currently, US-based Zero Gravity, France-based Novespace, and Russia-based Vegitel all provide microgravity flight services. Though different from space travels, microgravity flights bring great pleasure to passengers by providing a weightless environment.

2. Traveling on high-altitude balloons

A high-altitude balloon is an unpowered stratospheric aerostat. It can generally climb to an altitude of 40 to 50 km, which is lower than a satellite but much higher than an aircraft. Zero 2 Infinity, a Spanish company that is developing high-altitude balloons for travels, has rolled out several high-altitude balloon models to expand into this sector.

Operation of high-altitude balloons at Zero 2 Infinity

3. Traveling on suborbital flights

A suborbital spaceflight is a spaceflight in which the spacecraft reaches outer space, but its speed does not reach the orbital velocity so that it will not complete one orbital revolution. The spacecraft follows a parabolic trajectory and will fall back to ground after reaching its maximum height, which is normally known as the 100km Kármán line. Blue Origin and Virgin Galactic are currently the bellwethers of the suborbital flight field. It typically takes a Blue Origin flight 11 minutes from launch to landing. The rocket is launched and lands autonomously, and the capsule flies autonomously and then descends to the ground under parachutes several minutes after blasting off.

New Shepard space travel process

Virgin Galactic plans to provide suborbital flights. The spaceship will first be carried by the mothership White Knight to a high altitude, and then begin its flight after being released at a speed of 900m/s. It will be powered by a hybrid rocket motor once it is separated from the mothership.

SpaceShipTwo (SS2)

4. Traveling On Orbital Flights

An orbital flight is a spaceflight in which a spacecraft is placed on a trajectory where it could stay in space for at least one orbit. To do this around the Earth, the spacecraft must reach the orbital velocity of 7.8 km/s. In addition, due to the strong atmospheric drag in the lower atmosphere, scientific satellites usually fly at a height of 200 km above the sea level, while manned spacecrafts are often placed in orbits above 300 km. For example, the International Space Station (ISS) orbits the Earth at an altitude of about 400 km, and space shuttles generally fly at altitudes around 320 km.

Orbital space tourism has three major features, the first being its mature, safe, and reliable technology. Human spaceflight has evolved over a history of more than 50 years, during which remarkable achievements have been made in crewed spacecraft, space shuttle, space laboratory, and space station, among other spheres. Its safety is already well proven. Second, a variety of activities can be offered to tourists, such as making movements in a weightless environment and carrying out scientific experiments. The third feature is its high cost: basically, only billionaires are able to afford trips to the ISS, and this explains why there are only seven ISS visitors as of today.

III. Commercialization, the Only Path Forward for Space Tourism  

Space tourism is full of challenges and risks, and the only low-risk and low-cost path to space lies in revolutionary innovations. Innovation sits at the heart of space tourism. Space programs of the new era, compared with traditional space exploration, fully incentivize and leverage the innovative spirits of entrepreneurs and commercialization.

The success of SpaceX and Blue Origin also indicates that commercial space programs require grand vision, unwavering passion, and innovative spirits from entrepreneurs. The creation and growth of SpaceX builds on Elon Musk’s passion for deep space exploration, and Blue Origin was created, out of Jeff Bezos’ dream of environmental protection, to ship polluting industries on Earth deep into space.

Now, space tourism is still in its infancy and is a costly undertaking in every way, unaffordable to common travelers. Therefore, it is critical to lower the costs through commercialization.

After years of development, the global commercial spaceflight industry, to many’s delight, has entered a “golden era” with more open policies and a growing influx of capital. Industries in the commercial spaceflight sector are increasingly open, and multitudes of commercial companies in areas like manufacturing, launch, management and application, as well as telemetry, tracking and command grow rapidly. Corporations including Internet giants have launched their “Internet+Space” programs in succession, which gives rise to a myriad of new services and business models. These are making the global commercial spaceflight more accessible to everyone.