{"id":17525,"date":"2021-07-13T01:12:23","date_gmt":"2021-07-12T17:12:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp-productionenv-bjg9h2g2bgg5b8aa.southeastasia-01.azurewebsites.net\/news\/a-tale-of-two-spaceships-how-seattle-tech-titans-helped-launch-suborbital-space-tours\/"},"modified":"2021-07-13T01:12:23","modified_gmt":"2021-07-12T17:12:23","slug":"a-tale-of-two-spaceships-how-seattle-tech-titans-helped-launch-suborbital-space-tours","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/news\/a-tale-of-two-spaceships-how-seattle-tech-titans-helped-launch-suborbital-space-tours\/","title":{"rendered":"A tale of two spaceships: How Seattle tech titans helped launch suborbital space tours"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"SpaceShipTwo
Virgin Galactic\u2019s VSS Unity and its mothership (left) are modeled after the SpaceShipOne launch system (right) that was built with Seattle billionaire Paul Allen\u2019s backing. (Photos by Virgin Galactic and Michael Pereckas)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The suborbital spaceships built by Jeff Bezos\u2019 Blue Origin space venture and Richard Branson\u2019s Virgin Galactic spaceline may look totally different, but financially speaking, they have something in common: They both have connections to Seattle tech billionaires.<\/p>\n

The connection is obvious in the case of Blue Origin\u2019s New Shepard rocket ship. Bezos founded Blue Origin in 2000, about six years after he founded Seattle-based Amazon \u2014 and he has said he sells off a billion dollars in Amazon stock annually to fund his privately held space company.<\/p>\n

Today the Federal Aviation Administration said it has issued its formal approval for New Shepard\u2019s launch on July 20 from Blue Origin\u2019s West Texas spaceport, with Bezos and three crewmates seated on board. It\u2019ll be the first crewed mission for the suborbital craft, which has been put through 15 uncrewed test flights over the course of more than five years.<\/p>\n

Bezos\u2019 trip is due to take place just days after Branson took a ride on Virgin Galactic\u2019s SpaceShipTwo rocket plane, known as VSS Unity. Both trips are meant to blaze a trail for tourists and researchers to get a sample of the space environment, including a few minutes of zero gravity and wide-angle views of the curving Earth beneath the black sky of space.<\/p>\n

Blue Origin\u2019s headquarters has been in the Seattle area from the company\u2019s inception. But Virgin Galactic, which is headquartered in New Mexico, has a less obvious connection to the Seattle tech community.<\/p>\n

VSS Unity, the SpaceShipTwo rocket plane that took Branson and five crewmates beyond the 50-mile space milestone on Sunday, traces its technological roots to the SpaceShipOne rocket plane that was developed with a $28 million investment from Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen.<\/p>\n

Allen, who passed away in 2018, said in his autobiography that he eventually came out ahead in the deal \u2014 thanks to the $10 million Ansari X Prize that was won by SpaceShipOne\u2019s privately backed spaceflights in 2004, plus the licensing fees paid by Virgin Galactic and the tax break Allen received from donating the rocket plane to the Smithsonian in 2005.<\/p>\n

https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=GIUtc9IkdX8<\/p>\n

Virgin Galactic\u2019s SpaceShipTwo flights should be counted among the returns on Allen\u2019s investment, according to Ed Lazowska, a professor at the University of Washington\u2019s Paul G. Allen School of Computer Science and Engineering.<\/p>\n

In an email sent just hours after Branson\u2019s flight, Lazowska said VSS Unity is a \u201cdirect descendant\u201d of SpaceShipOne.<\/p>\n

\u201cBoth were designed by Burt Rutan, with Unity employing the \u2018shuttlecock\u2019 atmospheric re-entry system pioneered by SpaceShipOne,\u201d he said. \u201cAnd the launch approach is the same, with the spacecraft carried aloft by a huge mothership.\u201d<\/p>\n

Both motherships nestled their rocket planes beneath wide-spreading wings. SpaceShipOne\u2019s mothership was known as WhiteKnightOne, while the mothership for VSS Unity was christened VMS Eve in honor of Richard Branson\u2019s mother.<\/p>\n

Rutan\u2019s SpaceShipOne concept had to be scaled up significantly for SpaceShipTwo, and that\u2019s why it\u2019s taken 17 years for Virgin Galactic to bring the concept to the verge of commercialization.<\/p>\n

\"Ed
Ed Lazowska, University of Washington computer science professor. (UW Photo)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

SpaceShipOne was designed to carry a single pilot, plus enough dead weight to substitute for two passengers.<\/p>\n

\u201cPaul\u2019s specific goal was to capture the X Prize, and the system was designed for that specific task,\u201d Lazowska said. \u201cI remember emailing Paul, asking about the fact that the astronauts did not wear pressure suits. He explained that the X Prize specification required such a small period of time at apogee that it was possible to pressurize the spacecraft from the mothership, \u2018stick a cork in it\u2019 and avoid the weight of a pressurization system and spacesuits.\u201d<\/p>\n

Weight turned out to be a limiting factor for the development of SpaceShipTwo. Virgin Galactic started out with a design that would accommodate six passengers plus two pilots for a flight reaching SpaceShipOne\u2019s target altitude of 100 kilometers (62 miles). But in the process of turning the design into reality, Virgin Galactic trimmed back the seating capacity to two pilots plus four in the passenger cabin, and went with a 50-mile target.<\/p>\n

Safety was another bugaboo: Three of the workers involved in developing SpaceShipTwo died in 2007 when a tank of nitrous oxide exploded at Scaled Composites\u2019 test site in Mojave, Calif. Then, in 2014, one test pilot died and the other was seriously injured when the first SpaceShipTwo craft, VSS Enterprise, broke up during a test flight. The accident, and the investigation that followed, led to changes in the rocket plane\u2019s design as well as pilot training procedures.<\/p>\n

After years of testing, Virgin Galactic\u2019s pilots successfully flew VSS Unity beyond the 50-mile mark at California\u2019s Mojave Air and Space Port in 2018 and 2019, and did it again in May after the company moved its base of operations to Spaceport America in New Mexico. The string of successful flight tests should set the stage for paying passengers to step on board starting next year.<\/p>\n