It’s a bird! It’s a plane! It’s … a billionaire heading to the stars.
After over a decadelong hiatus, those with the time and money to burn on rocket fuel again took to the skies and beyond as space tourists and commercial astronauts. Since the last private explorer came down from a 12-day mission in 2009, there were no more private explorers until the “billionaire space race” missions launched in 2021. The five missions were in the works for years and envisioned by entrepreneurs such as Elon Musk of SpaceX, Jeff Bezos of Blue Origin, and Richard Branson of Virgin Galactic.
The billionaire space race has been criticized by some as being a playground for the uber-elite.
THE FUTURE OF SPACE TRAVEL ACCORDING TO BRANSON, MUSK, AND BEZOS
“We need to be focusing on this world rather than giving up and heading out into space to try and think of solutions for the future,” Prince William said, while a U.N. official said billionaires shouldn’t be “joyriding to space while millions go hungry on Earth.”
But others have pointed out the net positives of space travel, along with the excitement and hope it generates to see commercial space flight inch toward attainability.
Here are the five missions that may mark 2021 as the year that launched a new era of the space age.
Virgin Galactic, Unity 22 mission
On July 11, Virgin Galactic founder Richard Branson was hailed as the first billionaire to reach space. However, this claim is disputed, as the flight didn’t reach the international space boundary known as the Karman Line about 100 kilometers above the Earth’s surface. It did, however, pass the U.S. space boundary.
The flight, which lasted 36 minutes and provided passengers over four minutes of weightlessness, marked “the dawn of a new space age,” Branson said.
The private crewed mission deviated from its flight plan and spent over a minute in unauthorized air space, prompting the Federal Aviation Agency to restrict any more Virgin Galactic missions until it had investigated the incident.
Blue Origin, NS-16 mission
Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, not to be outdone by his competitor, took to the stars nine days after Branson with his space exploration company Blue Origin. On July 20, Bezos boarded his own product for a 10-minute flight that cleared the Karman Line. The crew of four included his brother Mark Bezos, Dutch 18-year-old Oliver Daemen, and 82-year-old aerospace pioneer Wally Funk.
“I want to thank every Amazon employee and every Amazon customer, because you guys paid for all of this,” Bezos said during a press conference following the flight. “Seriously, for every Amazon customer out there, and every Amazon employee, thank you from the bottom of my heart very much. It’s very appreciated.”
SpaceX, Inspiration4 mission
Elon Musk’s SpaceX launched the first all-civilian crewed space mission on Sept. 16. They spent three days in low Earth orbit, further than the International Space Station and at about the same orbital distance as the Hubble telescope.
The crew conducted medical research on the effects of space travel and zero gravity on the human body. The trip aimed to raise $200 million for St. Jude Children’s Hospital for pediatric cancer research. Medical officer Hayley Arceneaux is a researcher at St. Jude and a pediatric cancer survivor.
“The crew of Inspiration4 is eager to use our mission to help make a better future for those who will launch in the years and decades to come,” said Jared Isaacman, pilot of the mission and founder of Shift4 Payment.
Blue Origin, NS-18 mission
The year’s second Bezos-backed mission departed the planet on Oct. 13. The 10-minute flight cleared the Karman Line with William Shatner, 90, of Star Trek fame on board, becoming the oldest person ever to go to space.
Shatner portrayed Captain James T. Kirk on the popular television series about the adventures of Starship crew.
“I do not know what I may appear to the world, but to myself I seem to have been only like a boy playing on the seashore, diverting myself in now & then finding a smoother pebble or a prettier shell than ordinary, whilst the great ocean of truth lay all undiscovered before me,” Shatner remarked upon landing.
Space Adventures, ISS EP-20 mission
Japanese fashion mogul Yusaku Maezawa spent 12 days on the International Space Station, launching from Kazakhstan on Dec. 8. The U.S.-based company Space Adventures, which provided several private tourist trips to space in the early 2000s, oversaw the mission.
Maezawa was accompanied by a cosmonaut and a videographer to document the trip for his YouTube channel. They safely returned to Earth Sunday.
The fashion mogul is a space travel enthusiast who has plans in the works to travel back to space with SpaceX in 2023, along with eight artists of his choosing.
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The space race shows no sign of slowing in 2022. Virgin Galactic is expected to take to the skies again after delays from the FAA investigation and mechanical issues. SpaceX is working with another space flight company, Axiom, on at least four missions in the next year, and Blue Origin also said it has flights in the works for 2022.
The government will also continue space exploration via the National Aeronautics and Space Administration’s numerous projects, including launching the Hubble Telescope’s successor.
