By Dr Ajey Lele,
On 11 July 2021, the massive showman of civil aviation (Virgin Atlantic) the billionaire Richard Branson, effectively ventured to touch the edge of space to make the thought of space tourism a reality. He took off from a spaceport in New Mexico aboard a spaceship of his personal space firm known as Virgin Galactic and reached a height of about 85 km about the earth’s surface. Along with other crewmates, all Virgin staff did practical experience a couple of minutes of weightlessness and could see the curvature of mother earth. It was an practical experience of a lifetime for all of them.
Human’s going to space is not a new notion. It all began some six decades back when Yuri Gagarin, a Soviet pilot, became the very first human to check out outer space on 12 April 1961. He did comprehensive one orbit about the earth. He was in space for 108 minutes and is identified to have reached a maximum height of 327 km. Richard Branson’s VSS Unity was in space only for a couple of munities and this mission is identified as a suborbital mission.
On 20th July, a different small business tycoon, Amazon’s Jeff Bezos, would be attempting to attain space in his space firm Blue Origin’s craft New Shepard. This also would be a suborbital flight. Today, these small business tycoons are attempting to lead by instance and are keen to take out the doable fears in the minds of the individuals about the security elements of their spacecraft. Such bold attempts by these individuals are most likely to go a extended way to make the thought of space tourism a reality.
Virgin Galactic and Blue Origin are most likely to emerge as significant players in the close to future for the Space Tourism sector. For virtually two decades they have been generating sustained investments towards generating the dream of Space Tourism a reality. Currently, there is a waiting list of about 600 individuals who are prepared to spend about 2.5 lakh US dollars to have a 5 minutes of entertaining trip to space. It is anticipated that inside a period of much less than a one-year time, vacationers would commence going to space.
In Indian context, there seems to be extremely restricted interest of the massive industrial players in the domain of space. As per the Forbes magazine(2021 assessment) India has the third-highest quantity of billionaires (140 in total) in the world immediately after the US and China. But there is a total apathy in regards to getting into in the small business of space amongst Indian billionaires. It is Indian business, which is identified to have brought a revolution in Information Technology, even so in the domain of space there is a total muteness from the billionaires club. In reality, ISRO has business dependence for a extended time. Though these who are involved with ISRO are essentially assisting in the development of subsystems and are involved in fabrication roles. TATA and L & T have some interest and involvement in couple of ISRO projects. A particular person of Indian origin Mr Naveen Jain has founded a firm in the US known as Moon Express. But, otherwise it seems that Indian billionaires are not even conscious that they can make funds in the small business of space!
What could be the causes for the Indian billionaires not to invest in the space sector? Probably, they do not have the appetite for investment in the arena, exactly where the gestation period could be about two decades and on prime of that good results is not completely assured.So, are Indian billionaires threat-averse and not a great deal keen to place funds for innovation and R&D?It seems that quite a few of Indian billionaires essentially have a middle class thoughts-set and are not keen to take the road much less travelled. Surprisingly, they can invest funds for sponsoring cricketing events likeIPL or some Bollywood extravaganzas, but have not shown the vision to invest into the outer space arena.
Today, SpaceX and other agencies are capable to break the glass ceiling owing to the assistance of NASA. Luckily, the Department of Space and ISRO are keen for business handholding, but presently only commence-ups are located responding. At present, states like UAE have significant ambitions in the space sector and have currently undertaken effective missions to Mars. They are investing for the reason that they comprehend that their oil economy has finite life and they really feel that the space sector is most likely to emerge as a significant player in deciding the future of the international economy.
Agencies like Lockheed Martin, Boeing, United Launch Alliance, Orbital Sciences Corp and couple of other people are generating substantial and focussed investments in the space sector. There are billionaires like Mark Zuckerberg, Robert Bigelow, Paul Allen and couple of other people who are also investing in the space sector. There are quite a few possibilities in the space sector for investment beyond space tourism and India’s business must take note of it. From satellite manufacturing to satellite launching to development of ground infrastructure, there are quite a few fields, which are supplying small business possibilities and dying for the consideration of the billionaires!
There is a view that Richard Branson’s act is essentially a wealthy person’s game for publicity. Some individuals get in touch with his spacecraft a billionaire’s toy meant for fulfilment of his person dream and absolutely nothing more. However, in some instances it has been observed that technologies adoption takes place for the reason that of some acts of craziness. Few decades back mobile phones have been a novelty. Initially only wealthy individuals have been capable to afford this technologies. The price of one phone (handset) then was anything about US$ 5000 to 7000. Also, air travel was when regarded as as luxury meant only for the wealthy and renowned. Presently, it is exacted that with more players getting into into the field of space tourism, ultimately even space tourism could turn out to be somewhat very affordable. There is a will need for Indian billionaires to realise that the space sector is ripe with possibilities and is anticipated to contribute majorly towards shaping the future of the international economy and nonetheless there is a time to get into the small business of space.
(The author is Senior Fellow, MP-IDSA, New Delhi. Views expressed are private and do not reflect the official position or policy of TheSpuzz Online. He can be reached at: [email protected])