Space tourism is about to become a reality. Virgin Galactic is testing its SpaceShipTwo VSS Unity spacecraft, launched from an airplane, at a cost of $250,000. And Blue Origin, founded by Amazon boss Jeff Bezos, has just announced that tickets will be sold in 2019 for a seat on its New Shepard rocket, which will take six people into space, at more than 100 kilometers above sea level.
These two vehicles will not go into orbit but will float the passengers in weightlessness for several minutes. Finally, NASA, led by Donald Trump, is focusing on the construction of a station orbiting the Moon... prelude to sending astronauts to Mars, in the distant future. For the first human voyage around the Moon since 1972, NASA is developing its own capsule (Orion) and rocket (SLS), which will be the most powerful ever built in the United States.
First voyage, unmanned, in lunar orbit planned for 2020, and with astronauts by 2023. For these distant exploration missions, it seems more advanced than SpaceX BFR’s mega- rocket, which will be even more powerful than Falcon Heavy, its large rocket tested in February.