Fly me to the Moon (and beyond…)

The concept of flying anywhere at present is a delicate conversational subject matter to have with anyone. Questions such as “is it safe to book a holiday to foreign soils?”, or “is there a chance we might get there and the Covid status change whilst we are abroad?” These are the deliberations that many friends, family and colleagues are having at the moment. But in the area of aeronautical engineering, there seem to be no restrictions or boundaries certainly in terms of new ideas and innovations.

Recently across the various news channels there has been a lot of content posted surrounding the latest breakthroughs in this industry. For example, the US airline company United has announced plans to start offering passenger flights by 2029 and to run the aircraft entirely on sustainable aviation fuel (SAF). There is also Elon Musk’s Space X programme with an ambitious long-term goal of creating a self-sustaining city on Mars. Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin passenger flight scheduled for July 20th, on the 52nd anniversary of the Apollo 11 moon landing, just auctioned a ‘ticket to ride’ which finally sold for a whopping $28million. Bringing it back home, where most of us are at the moment, the UK is also joining this current space race as it aims to be the first European country to launch rockets and satellites from it’s soil.

Given the amount spent for one ticket for a civilian to travel into space, shows there is a lot of buzz and general excitement about the possibility of making space travel almost accessible to all. It is easy to forget that behind all these ideas and innovations are numerous designers and engineers, all experts in their fields, which may make it possible for the children of the future to fly to infinity and beyond.

External sources for further reading:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-57361193
https://www.newcivilengineer.com/latest/civil-engineers-invited-to-join-the-space-race-as-uk-spaceport-plans-outlined-24-05-2021/
https://www.tesla.com/en_GB/elon-musk
https://www.theguardian.com/science/2021/jun/12/jeff-bezos-space-auction-28m-spare-seat-blue-origin