US approves Blue Origin for Human Space Travel

Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has approved “Blue Origin license” in order to carry humans on New Shepard launch system into space.

Key Points

• Former Amazon.com Chief Executive, Jeff Bezos, is to fly to space on July 20 through Blue Origin’s maiden crewed voyage.
• Blue Origin is authorized to carry humans while FAA license is valid through August.
• Blue Origin is approved to conduct these missions from its Launch Site One facility in Texas.
• This flight is coming after space-tourism rival Virgin Galactic successfully sent its crew to the edge of space.

Background

Virgin Galactic, Blue Origin, spaceX firm are working to usher in new era of routine commercial civilian space travel. Space travel has been popularized as “billionaire space race.” Proving rocket travel is safe for public is a significant key of developing a space tourism market which is going to be $3 billion market, as per an estimate of Swiss-based investment bank UBS.

Space Tourism

Space Tourism is human space travel for recreational purposes. There are different types of space tourism such as orbital, suborbital and lunar space tourism. Till date, orbital space tourism has been performed only by Roscosmos. Different agencies like Blue Origin & Virgin Galactic are working to develop suborbital space tourism vehicles. SpaceX also announced in 2018 about their plan of sending space tourists, including Yusaku Maezawa, on a free-return trajectory around Moon on Starship.

Blue Origin

It is an American aerospace manufacturer and sub-orbital spaceflight services company. It is privately funded and is headquartered in Kent, Washington. It was founded in 2000 by Jeff Bezos who is also the founder & executive chairman of Amazon.

Month: Current Affairs - July, 2021