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Around the ground on the 5th, the flying height will break records.

Editor’s note: This article from the micro-channel public number “The machine can” (ID: almosthuman2017) , of: Liqin.

Following the “self-explosive” rocket worth 340 million yuan, and verifying SpaceX’s successful test of the spacecraft’s escape capability, Elon Musk’s manned “Space Tour” program has made new progress.

SpaceX under Musk announced that it will send up to 4 passengers into space by the end of 2021 or sometime in early 2022.

These four passengers will fly around the Earth in SpaceX’s crewed Crew Dragon, flying at two to three times the altitude of the Earth’s 400 km orbit (International Space Station).

Want to go on a space trip? Your wish will be realized in the near future.

On February 18th, SpaceX stated that “Space Tour” is expected to take place from the end of 2021 to mid-2022, and will be launched from Cape Canaveral Space Port in Florida. The journey will last 5 days.

After entering space, these four passengers will fly around the earth in SpaceX’s manned “Crew Dragon”, overlooking the earth from a new perspective, flying at an altitude of 400 kilometers orbit (international space station) Two to three times, they will break the world height record of private spacecraft.

Space Adventures calls it “the way it has never been since the Gemini Project in the 1960s.”

The official website has not disclosed any more detailed plans for this “Space Tour” experience. However, according to SpaceX’s previous introduction of the internal situation of the manned “dragon ship” carrying tourists around the earth, we may be able to imagine this scene.

Inside the SpaceX’s Crew Dragon capsule

The space design of the spacecraft is minimal, with only a few floating seats and a row of touch screens, and the windows are smaller than the blue origin spacecraft. When you are sitting in a small spaceship, the floating seat keeps you suspended, and you can see the vast space through the window.

01 Space Tour Program

SpaceX and Space Adventures have entered into the Space Tour program.

On February 18th, Space Adventures announced its cooperation plan with SpaceX on its website. These tourists will be matched by Space Adventures and will fly on the SpaceX manned “dragon spacecraft” launched by the Falcon 9 rocket, the same spacecraft and vehicles used by SpaceX to transport NASA astronauts to the International Space Station.

SpaceX said the mission will last five days and is expected to launch from Cape Canaveral, Florida, in late 2021 to mid-2022. The training for this mission takes “several weeks”. This mission is a “free flight”, that is, the capsule will not attempt to dock with the space station, but will return after a circle around the earth.

Gwynne Shotwell, President and Chief Operating Officer of SpaceX, said: “This historic mission will provide all dreamers with a path to spaceflight, and we are pleased to join Space Adventures in Teamwork. “

However, Space Adventures did not disclose the price of the trip, nor did the two companies disclose other details such as what preparations tourists need to do. For reference, SpaceX last year reached an agreement with Bigelow Aerospace to send individual tourists to the International Space Station for $ 52 million per person.

Space Adventures is the world ’s first private space explorer organization to fly. Headquartered in the Washington, D.C. metropolitan area, it has provided a variety of flight plans, including space flights to the International Space Station and orbiting the moon.

Since 2001, Space Adventures has helped many people from all over the world board the Soyuz rocket and spacecraft to and from the International Space Station, including Cirque du Soleil, the billionaire Regal Guy Laliberte, game designer, British-American Richard Garriott; and South African software entrepreneur and millionaire Mark Shuttleworth .

The billionaire Charles Simonyi, the developer behind Microsoft’s Word and Excel software, is the only tourist who has been to space twice. He arrived at the International Space Station in 2007 and 2009, paying a total of about $ 60 million for it.

It is understood that the companies currently participating in space tourism are Richard Branson’s Virgin Galactic and Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin, who are also working to bring tourists beyond the boundaries of space.

02 The “exclusive space” for astronauts

SpaceX CEO Elon Musk has always had the ambition of “space travel”, and the manned space capsule “Dragon Spaceship” is his most important part. As the protagonist of the “Space Tour”, it was originally built to send astronauts to the International Space Station. SpaceX plans to ship the first NASA astronauts between April and June this year.

Just a few days ago, NASA tweeted that the satellite launch company SpaceX would be the first private company to transport astronauts to the International Space Station (ISS).

Previously, SpaceX’s astronaut dragon spacecraft has been completed and shipped to Eastern Florida, USA, and arrived at SpaceX’s base in Florida on Thursday, February 13.

SpaceX has been building and testing a new manned “Dragon” spacecraft for the past few years. The private aerospace company recently completed the second large flight test of Dragon 2 and proved the ability of the spacecraft to escape if the rocket explodes.

According to foreign media the Verge, as early as 2017, SpaceX stated that it had accepted secret payments from two customers and would use a manned spacecraft and a heavy Falcon rocket to take customers around the moon.

SpaceX said at the time that the trip would take place by the end of 2018. But in September 2018, the company announced its intention to send one of its passenger Yusaku Maezawa, a Japanese billionaire, to the moon with a large Falcon Rocket that has not yet been built.

Masawa Tomosawa, born in 1975, was once a rock singer and is now a Japanese billionaire entrepreneur and art collector. He founded Start Today in 1998 and Zozotown, an online fashion retail website, in 2004. According to Forbes, he ranked 59th in the 2017 Forbes Global 100 Richest in the Technology Industry.

Of course, Musk’s desire is more than just letting people watch the sun, moon, starry sky. Starting with the Falcon One rocket, everything he did was through the development of spacecraft, completing the first step in manning to the sky, and then achieving a “big game” of colonizing Mars.