The era of private space travel is upon us
Lesson summary
Hi there, thanks for joining us for another Plain English lesson. I’m Jeff; JR is the producer; and you can find this full lesson—including the free transcripts—at PlainEnglish.com/273.
In today’s lesson: For the first time ever, an astronaut went to the International Space Station in a spacecraft built by a private company. It’s the first time a private company put a human in space, but it won’t be the last. The expression today is “a dry spell.” And of course we have our video lesson, pronunciation exercises, and more at PlainEnglish.com/273.
Private space travel
The United States is one of the world’s leading space powers and was the first—and only—country to put a man on the moon. But for nine years, we hadn’t been able to launch our own astronauts into space. Embarrassingly, American astronauts had to hitch a ride on Russian or Chinese spacecraft if they wanted to access the International Space Station. That dry spell came to an end when Douglas Hurley and Robert Behnken made the 19-hour trip from Florida’s Kennedy Space Center to the Space Station.
What is remarkable about this is that Colonels Hurley and Behnken made the trip in a private vehicle, not a government one. They rode in a Dragon capsule and that capsule was launched into space by a Falcon 9 rocket. Both the capsule and the rocket were made by SpaceX, a private company owned by Elon Musk. This is the first time anyone has made it into space while riding in private company’s vehicle. The age of private space travel is upon us.
In the old days, America’s space agency, NASA, would design a program and work with huge companies to build the design according to the government’s exact specifications. Costs were exorbitant and the design was inefficient. It’s no wonder we didn’t have a space shuttle for almost a decade. This time, NASA changed its approach. It didn’t have the money to develop the new designs, so it decided to tell private companies what it wanted to achieve, and let the private companies compete to meet the objective at the lowest cost.
Both SpaceX and a competitor, Orbital Sciences, have been taking cargo into space for the US government for years. The recent mission to the Space Station was the first time a private company took a human into space. The costs to the US government were far lower than previous manned missions.
NASA has ambitions to return to the moon. The majority of the work on the next moon mission is being done the old way—government design, extremely expensive contracts, and a lot of political interference. But parts of the program are being contracted to private companies, including Jeff Bezos’s Blue Origin.
America is clearly getting more comfortable with the idea of private companies going deeper into space. So I know the next question on your mind: what about tourism?
To date, only seven private citizens have taken a trip to space, all aboard Russian government’s Soyuz space craft. The cost was about $20 million per person. But now SpaceX, Blue Origin, Virgin Galactic, Boeing and others are developing plans to take private tourists to space.
Boeing is allowed to sell tickets to private citizens to ride along on its missions to the Space Station on behalf of the American government. SpaceX wants to take high-paying customers into orbit, about 250 miles above earth, for costs in the millions of dollars.
Blue Origin and Virgin are developing sub-orbital spacecraft, the kind that would just barely get you into outer space, let you feel weightlessness for a few minutes, and then return to earth. Virgin Galactic is designing a spacecraft that would take six passengers at a time about fifty miles above the earth. To put that in perspective, the space station is about 250 miles above earth—so a Virgin flight would take you about 20 percent of the way to the space station. The costs would be a mere two or three hundred thousand dollars.
If that’s too much, there are smaller-scale projects in the works, too. Last week, a startup called Space Perspective announced plans to take tourists into “space” in a balloon. No, wait. Keep listening. The Spaceship Neptune is a 650-foot-long contraption that includes a huge balloon and a capsule. According to the design, the balloon will be filled with hydrogen and will carry a pilot and eight passengers nineteen miles above earth, where they’ll spend a few hours looking down at the planet. The balloon will then slowly come down and splash into the ocean.
In the transcript, I put “space” in quotes—even as I pronounce it, I’m doing air quotes with my fingers—because although nineteen miles straight up is a long way, it’s still not what scientists generally consider to be space. To get to space, officially, you have to go fifty miles up. Still, nineteen miles in a balloon is about two and a half times higher than a typical airplane flies. Space Perspective has leased the former Space Shuttle landing pad at the Kennedy Space Center and will begin testing its balloon next year.
Live webinar on English-learning technology
This was a high-tech lesson and I wanted to let you know that JR and I are going to host a high-tech webinar soon. And the topic is going to be, the best technology tools for learning English in 2020.
A lot of you ask what kinds of tools can I use to improve my English? What web sites are there? Where should I go to practice? So I did some research on the best online tools for learning English and I gathered all my notes and put them all into a web class, which I will be hosting later this month. I’ll do a few of them, so you can find a time that’s convenient to you.
If you’re curious, you can find a link right on the home page of PlainEnglish.com. You can also see it on your dashboard if you’re a free member or in the transcript of this lesson. The best technology tools for learning English in 2020, and it’s free. So check it out.
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