Airlines often have problems like passenger baggage being lost, or flights getting delayed. They are betting on technology to help their customers as well as their employees.
Real-time customer data and new analytical tools using powerful computers are now being used to track baggage handling, predictive maintenance, inventory and cargo.

Technology For Airline Baggage

Airport friction, that is the number of people(ground handlers, airline staff and Visa consultants) a passenger needs to interact with while travelling is an area of concern in which technology comes to the rescue.Improvements in data exchange have led to a 50 percent decrease in baggage mishandling rates over the last decade, according to a global tally.

Secure Exchange Of Traveller Data

<ul><li>Many airlines like Air Canada are investing heavily to consolidate and streamline data, with the aim to prevent mishaps, mishandling and delays even before they occur.</li><li>Real-time data is streamed to smartphones and smartwatches, instead of being emailed as PDF files, to ensure that swift action is taken in case of any ongoing or potential problem.</li></ul>

Preventive Measures Using Technology

In 2019, 25.4 million bags went missing, costing the industry billions of dollars - can big data solve the problem?

Stashed ideas

How airlines will stop you losing your bags in the future

The biggest perk of traveling to space is the view. Just past the boundary between space and Earth, passengers can catch a stunning glimpse of our planet juxtaposed against the wide unknown of space. The view is meant to be awe-inducing, and the experience even has its own name: the Overview Effect.&nbsp;Another perk of these trips is that space tourists will feel a few minutes of microgravity, which is when gravity feels extremely weak. That will give them the chance to bounce around a spacecraft weightlessly before heading back to Earth.

What will people actually be able to see and experience on a space trip?

<ul><li>Right now, space tourism flights have only reached suborbital space, which means that flights enter space but do not enter orbit around Earth. Scientifically, that’s not a new frontier (done by NASA back in the early 1960s).</li><li>Right now, it’s not clear these trips will offer scientists major new insights, but they might provide information that could be used in the future for space exploration. These trips are also being marketed as potential opportunities for scientific experiments.</li><li>Suborbital spaceflight might also create new ways to travel from one place on earth to another.</li></ul>

Does commercial space travel have any scientific goals, or is it really just a joyride?

Right now, it’s not entirely clear just how risky space tourism is.<ul><li>One way space tourism companies are trying to keep travelers safe is by requiring training so that the people who are taking a brief sojourn off Earth are as prepared as possible.</li><li>On the flight, people can experience intense altitude and G-forces. </li><li>There’s also the chance that space tourists will be exposed to radiation, though that risk depends on how long you’re in space.</li><li>Some tourists will likely barf on the ride.</li><li>There doesn’t seem to be an age limit on who can travel, though.</li></ul>

Is it safe?

The leaders in commercial space tourism already claim they have a market to support the industry. While Jeff Bezos hinted the price would eventually come down — as eventually happened with the high prices of the nascent airline industry — for now, ticket prices are in the low hundreds of thousands, at least for Virgin Galactic.&nbsp;That price point would keep spaceflight out of reach for most of humanity, but there are enough interested rich people that space tourism seems to be economically feasible.

How much will tickets cost?

<ul><li>The emissions of a flight to space can be worse than those of a typical airplane flight because just a few people hop aboard, so the emissions per passenger are much higher. That pollution could become much worse if space tourism becomes more popular.</li><li>The carbon footprint of launching yourself into space in one of these rockets is incredibly high, close to about 100 times higher than if you took a long-haul flight.</li><li>These flights’ effects on the environment will differ depending on factors like the fuel they use, the energy required to manufacture that fuel, and where they’re headed.</li></ul>

What impact will commercial space travel have on the environment?

<ul><li>The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has generally been given the job of overseeing the commercial space industry. But regulation of space is still relatively meager.</li><li>One of the biggest areas of concern is licensing launches and making sure that space flights don’t end up hitting all the other flying vehicles humans launch into the sky, like planes and drones.</li><li>There’s a lot that still needs to be worked out, especially as there are more of these launches.</li><li>In the meantime, no government agency is currently vetting these companies when it comes to the safety of the human passengers aboard.</li><li>There doesn’t seem to be an abundance of travelers’ insurance policies for space.</li></ul>

Who is regulating commercial space travel?

Six questions to consider before launching yourself into space.

Six questions to consider before launching yourself into space

The Virgin Galactic space plane Unity landed safely in New Mexico on Sunday morning after a trip meant to make human spaceflight seem unexceptional.

The space plane separated from the carrier ship around 11:25 a.m. and ignited its engine for about 60 seconds, carrying Mr. Branson and the crew into space. Video footage from the live stream showed him and the crew experiencing weightlessness.

A seat on one of the company’s spaceships originally cost <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/30/science/space/virgin-galactics-spaceshiptwo-inches-closer-to-space.html">$200,000 </a>. The company later <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/16/science/virgin-galactic-spacesuit.html">raised the price to $250,000 </a>. It then stopped sales after a crash during a test flight in 2014. When the company resumes sales later this year, the price will probably rise again, said Michael Colglazier, Virgin Galactic’s chief executive.

An unnamed passenger paid $28 million to join the Amazon founder Jeff Bezos later this month when his rocket company, Blue Origin, is to launch its New Shepard rocket and capsule. The company has yet to announce the standard fare for a trip on its spacecraft when Mr. Bezos isn’t in the next seat.

Three people paid $55 million each to Axiom Space in Houston to fly in SpaceX’s Crew Dragon to the International Space Station as soon as early next year.But not all trajectories to space will involve six or seven figures. On Sunday, Mr. Branson announced that Virgin Galactic would give away two tickets to space as part of a <a href="https://www.omaze.com/products/virgin-galactic-2021?ref=space">sweepstakes </a>initiative with the charitable fund-raising platform Omaze.

The Virgin Galactic design already has an imperfect safety record. The company’s first space plane, the V.S.S. Enterprise, crashed during a test flight in 2014 when the co-pilot moved a lever too early during the flight, allowing the tail booms to rotate when they should have remained rigid. The Enterprise broke apart, and the co-pilot, Michael Alsbury, was killed. The pilot, Peter Siebold, survived after parachuting out of the plane.The controls were redesigned so that the tail booms cannot be unlocked prematurely.

safety risks

The Italian Air Force has purchased seats on future flights for scientific research, as has the Southwest Research Institute in Boulder, Colo. It will be much easier, faster and cheaper to fly experiments on suborbital flights than to get them to the International Space Station.

The Virgin Galactic space plane Unity landed safely in New Mexico on Sunday morning after a trip meant to make human spaceflight seem unexceptional.

Inspirational

Highlights From Richard Branson’s Virgin Galactic Flight

Space exploration includes two kinds of spacesuits:
<ul>
<li>One is worn inside a spacecraft during launch and ascent to space, during re-entry into Earth’s atmosphere and during landing. </li>
<li>The other kind is designed specifically for spacewalks. NASA calls a spacewalk an Extra-Vehicular Activity or EVA, so this type of suit is called an EVA suit. It is a miniature spaceship shaped like a human body that protects from dangers such as radiation, dust, debris, and extreme temperatures.</li>
</ul>

Different suits serve different purposes

The spacewalk spacesuit consists of two main parts: The pressure garment and the life support system. The primary parts of the pressure garment:<ul><li>The cooling garment is made from stretchy spandex material and about 300 feet of water tubes woven into the clothing that covers the body except for the head, hands and feet.</li><li>Hard Upper Torso connects the inside of the suit with the portable life support system.</li><li>Heated gloves.</li><li>Lower Torso is made up of spacesuit pants, boots and the lower half of the waist closure.</li></ul>

The pressure garment

The flexible parts of the suit are made from 16 layers of material that performs different functions.<ul><li>The cooling garment makes up the first three layers.</li><li>The bladder layer is filled with gas to create proper body pressure and holds the oxygen for breathing.</li><li>The next layer holds the bladder layer.</li><li>The ripstop liner is a tear-resistant layer.</li><li>The subsequent layers act as insulation.</li><li>The outer layer reflects heat from the sunlight and is made of a fabric that blends three kinds of threads: One provides water resistance, one is made from bullet-proof vest material, the last is fire resistant.</li></ul>

Layers of the spacesuit

<ul><li>Life support system. The backpack on the back of the spacesuit contains oxygen that astronauts breathe and that pressurizes the suit, a regulator to keep the correct pressure, a fan that circulates oxygen, electricity for the suit, a two-way radio, water for the cooling garment, and a pump that circulates the chilled water.</li><li>Communications system. New suits include an audio system inside the helmet.</li><li>Helmet. It serves as a pressure bubble and ventilation system and has a small foam block to scratch the nose. A protective visor on the outside works like sunglasses.</li></ul>

The life support and communications system and helmet

A spacesuit is much more than a set of clothes astronauts wear on spacewalks. A fully equipped spacesuit is actually a spaceship shaped like a human body that protects the astronaut from the dangers of being outside in space or on the Moon.

Spacesuit Basics

Sir Richard Branson, the billionaire entrepreneur who owns Virgin Galactic, boarded his rocket for its maiden space voyage, debuting private space tourism and beating Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos to the private space race.
<ul>
<li>Unity, the rocket plane with two pilots, flew the billionaire to the edge of the earth, reaching 282,000 feet up in the sky, and getting back within the hour.</li>
<li>The flight departed from New Mexico where Elon Musk joined in to support Sir Richard Branson.</li>
<li>The space project was conceived in 2004 but was delayed due to technical problems including a fatal crash in 2014.</li>
</ul>

Billionaire In Space

The Virgin Group owner plans to start commercial space tourism in 2022 and has already taken a USD 250,000 deposit from 600 individuals keen on a space ride.According to Jeff Bezos, the height achieved by the Unity Space rocket is not 100 km, the internationally recognized altitude where one enters space, even though the U.S. Government puts the height at 80 km.

Space Tourism: The Next Frontier

Unity is a sub-orbital rocket and cannot achieve the velocity or altitude required to maintain its position in space or circle the earth. It is carried into space using a bigger rocket up to 15 km and can achieve a maximum height of 90 km.It has a unique feather mechanism to self-stabilize its fall while gliding back to earth.

Unity The Rocket

The UK businessman realises a lifetime's ambition by riding a rocket plane high into the sky.

virgingalatic

Technology For Airline Baggage

How airlines will stop you losing your bags in the future

What will people actually be able to see and experience on a space trip?

Six questions to consider before launching yourself into space