China's Plans to Launch Space Tourism in 2027

A suborbital crewed capsule surfaced on the Chinese internet in late October 2024: a Chinese launch startup that goes by the name of Deep Blue Aerospace wants to develop an equivalent of Blue Origin's New Shepard, marking China's entry into the age of suborbital space tourism. What is this capsule like, how will it launch, are there any domestic competitors, and is there an actual market for this product? Let's deep dive into this topic in this video!

00:00 Introduction
00:21 Who is Deep Blue Aerospace ?
01:13 Characteristics of the "Rocketaholic" crewed capsule
02:23 Advantages, disadvantages, and comparison with Chinese space tourism competitors
05:35 Is there a market for a Chinese "New Shepard"?

[DongfangHour]

There is a small typo at 0:44 --> VTVL stands for Vertical Takeoff Vertical Landing (not Vertical Takeoff Vertical Takeoff 😅)

[ndragunawan]

If they sell it to almost everyone on earth, at that price point, yeah they'd have customers.

[DanBurgaud]

12 minutes of space experience is definitely short...
But if they can experience circumnavigating the earth, seeing day and night in a flash, it would be awesome!

[chadlymath]

You've got the clarity on the government push for social levity. An inclusive International actuation could move the needle, in many ways, and the mainland rich could invite 'out of town' friends for their suborbital ventures, once proven. And it would cost less than full orbital insertion.

[mantabletin]

I don't think their target is "super-rich" class people. Car builders sell many thousands of USD100k sport cars of limited real utility every year. Anyone who is wealthy enough to pay for that as a crazy "once in a life time" toy, can pay for a Space experience. they only need to be wealthy space nerds instead of wealthy car nerds. You need to be quite rich but not super-rich

[davidstevenson]

A capsule carrying six humans at speeds of 16, 000kmph, in a ballistic trajectory, to altitudes of up to 100kms to get into Space, and back to Earth again, safely, requires it to be shaped like a bullet: ballistic capsule designers have no choice in design.

Unfortunately, SpaceX Fanboys are blinded by both their devoteeism and misguided nationalism to see this.

Thank you, DongFang Hour, for another thoroughly well researched report. Hello from New Zealand.
(Subscribed...but not devoted...)
🚀🇨🇳🇨🇦📡🌏👋👤🇳🇿🦎🌴☀️🌊

[JoseSilveira-newhandleforYT]

Seems like a big financial risk, but it's also an opportunity to develop technology with an achievable goal, to increase know-how and reputation.
As per RT yesterday, the Chinese Long March 2C successfully launched four PIESAT-2 remote sensing satellites into orbit, from China’s Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center. Will you be talking about this kind of projects?

[dphuntsman]

Good report; and thanks for flipping for the graphics- they help! Can’t really make an intelligent comment about internal-Chinese market prospects; as you imply, the money is clearly there, and it would only take a sliver of potential demand to feed one or two two players; still…….. Your point about Deep Blue biting off more than it can produce - at least on its own- is spot on, in my view; they’d need a Partner that brings the more “payload” - oriented expertise - as well as hopefully some yuan- to the table; as I think you also (indirectly) imply might or should (!) happen. Not sure the companies working on orbital commercial cargo services would necessarily have a leg up on that, tho, even if better capitalized and supported. if we use the US as an example- and it may Not be appropriate to do so- SpaceX and Orbital Sciences winning COTS/CRS (Commercial Orbital Transportation Services/Commercial Resupply Services) et al didn’t lead them to compete suborbitally at all. // All in all, lots happening in China with reusable space vehicle development- in a way, more than in the US, in terms of number of new starts. Thanks for covering it so well. - Dave Huntsman

[douginorlando]

Looking for a better business plan than just launching millionaires into space … could this lead to offering a crew dragon type service? (I.e. transporting astronauts and tourists to China’s space station). Or will the government want to keep that part of space business in house?

[lauset]

For the Space Tourist comes along the infrastructure, I wonder what town or smaller city could benefit the enterprise.

[iamgod]

The best space Technology from China 👏👏👏🇨🇳

[MimeHTF]

There is propably a marked but not a big one. The companies would probably make a lot of money if they also ran a kind of lottery in which you win a flight into space instead of a few million

[clementine_awesomeness]

calling a rocket, even a reusable one "vertical takeoff vertical landing" is like calling an airliner a monoplane, its technically correct but not really necessary

[sfguzmani]

It's to have a youtuber that tackels China's space sector.

[CrankThatFranck]

Brics can be a part of this clients, a lot of countrys beyond China will buyng flight in this things!

[tluangasailo]

How well do you try to copy US approach? China : Yes

[picandvideo]

Should be docking with Tiengong station for few days before heading back to earth. Tiengong should have a visitor module.

[playframe]

why call the company "air space" if you aim to go to space. Air is not the medium

[lyri-kyunero]

I don't take a saguine view of Deep Blue' space tour plan to be realized in 2026. Since this company has only one product in development: Nebula-1 (or Xingyun-1), and the highest altitude it reach until now is only about 3000 meters during its failed VTVL test, while its competitor Landspace's VTVL prototype already flew to 10 km and succeed in landing. Its payload capacity is the lowest among the reusable rockets among Chinese private companies, and additionally, the propaganda and advertisement of this company was far more pompous. So I would rather trust Galatic Energy, CAS space, Oriental Space etc. if they advertise their space tour plan. Of course, I don' t mean Deep Blue will never succeed in space tourism, but maybe more time is needed.

[joejoewalters]

If each of those billionaires took 5 of their workers with them I am sure the party would oblige that. In fact that's probably just a great way to promote "common prosperity" anyway for them.