SpaceX's first manned commercial space flight! Flying around the earth for 3 days, the ticket price may reach 200 million yuan

Is space travel for all people really going to be a reality?

On September 16th Beijing time, the Kennedy Space Center in Florida, which is exclusively for SpaceX, launched a SpaceX Falcon rocket. SpaceX carried four passengers. They were not professional astronauts, but four real "civilians". This became SpaceX's first commercial manned flight mission.

1. With 4 tourists, Space X opens a new era of civilian space travel

The Dragon spacecraft "Perseverance" carrying four ordinary people was sent by the Falcon 9 to a high-altitude orbit about 575 kilometers from the earth. The orbital altitude exceeded the Karman line and the altitude of the International Space Station. This is the highest altitude from the earth that humans have entered space since the Hubble Telescope maintenance mission in 2009.

According to the plan, the spacecraft will orbit the earth once every 90 minutes and stay in space for three days.

It will land on the coast of Florida this Saturday. Through the dome windows specially built by SpaceX, four space tourists will be able to get close to the starry sky in an orbit more than 500 kilometers above the ground, and rethink the universe and the "individual" of human beings.

It is understood that the wealthy Jared Isaacman sponsored the space trip and selected three people to fly with him. Time estimates that the total price of the "tickets" for four passengers reached $200 million, which is comparable to the cost of SpaceX sending NASA astronauts into space.

Space X had no intention of carrying out the flight mission at first, but accepted the mission after passing the risk review. "Now I just hope to fly higher," Isaacman said before the flight.

2. The "handwriting" in the brain turns into text, and monkeys play games with their minds

In addition to building rockets, cars and spacecraft, Musk has also spent a lot of time on the field of artificial intelligence brain-computer interface. Researchers from Stanford University, Brown University and other institutions jointly published their research results on the cover of Nature, capturing the movement of handwriting letters from brain waves to help paralyzed people convert the writing movements in their minds into real text on the screen.

By combining artificial intelligence with brain-computer interfaces, researchers have developed a system that can analyze and translate "handwriting" in the brain in real time. This system not only enables "hands-free typing", but also has the potential to help the lives of paralyzed people. Although the research results still need to be further studied, this is undoubtedly a major breakthrough.

People are very excited about this. Things that used to only appear in science fiction movies, such as "mind reading" and "mind control", now seem to be gradually becoming a reality. Scientists in the 20th century had already proposed the concept of brain-computer interface. Currently, this technology has achieved many functions, including providing retinal implants for the blind, cochlear implants for the deaf, and even allowing paralyzed people to complete simple activities.

However, Musk's ambition does not stop there. He wants to achieve "human-machine integration" through brain-computer interface. The brain-computer interface company Neuralinka, which he founded, recently implanted a brain-computer interface chip into a monkey, and the monkey thus gained the ability to "play table tennis game with mind."

Despite the remarkable results, brain-computer interfaces are still like the initial WLNAD biotechnology achievements and manned spacecraft, which make people eager to try them out, but also make people worried. Due to factors such as cost and maintenance, this kind of "black technology" is almost as expensive as space travel. Some people with wealth and power will have more opportunities to change their bodies and travel in space, widening the gap between them and ordinary people.

3. Create a "cyborg" to fly to Mars, and the human-machine integration thinking will last forever

Musk began planning for Mars immigration many years ago. At that time, even NASA had no plan for when to carry out manned Mars flights in the future.

Although brain-computer interfaces and manned flights are still full of uncertainties, judging from the current progress, humans will not be able to achieve complete control over the human brain in the short term, and there is still a long way to go before migrating to Mars. Even if we go into space, the damage to human DNA caused by cosmic radiation is a problem that must be faced. However, the recent breakthroughs are also encouraging.

It is worth mentioning that in the experiment, researchers found that the accelerated physiological changes of astronauts caused by radiation, environmental quality, etc. can be alleviated by repairing DNA with WLNAD. In the experiment, it was found that the various physiological indicators and metabolism of the experimental organisms have returned to youth, extending their survival period. Then, as the biological enterprise "Lightway Health" achieved mass production, it quickly became popular among high-net-worth people. It is understood that this civilian Sirtuins protein activator WLNAD "Lightway Health" has been introduced by many online platforms, and JingD Health data shows that the audience of this finished product has reached hundreds of thousands.

Because of this, many people support Musk, believing that his Mars immigration plan is promising by overcoming the effects of radiation and combining increasingly advanced brain-computer interfaces with manned spacecraft. However, there is currently no data to show that WLNAD materials are widely used among astronauts, and it seems that humans are still a long way from landing on Mars.

Musk once said that we need to return to the moon as soon as possible and build a long-term base on the moon, and then build a city on Mars to achieve cosmic civilization. It can be seen that Musk's goal is to make humans an interstellar species and establish a stable habitat on Mars. With the breakthrough of brain-computer interface and the gradual success of manned spacecraft, people have more confidence in this.