![]() ![]() Its descent was punctuated by a deafening sonic boom, along with raucous cheers from the Blue Origin workers here who watched the flight.Īll of this action, from liftoff to landings, took just over 10 minutes. The rocket also returned safely, making a vertical, powered touchdown at its designated landing zone. The capsule carried Bezos, 57, his brother Mark, 53, 82-year-old aviation pioneer Wally Funk and 18-year-old Dutch physics student Oliver Daemen 66.5 miles (107 kilometers) above Earth, then came down for a parachute-aided, dust-raising landing in the West Texas scrublands. Blue Origin’s New Shepard lifts-off from the launch pad carrying Jeff Bezos along with his brother Mark Bezos, 18-year-old Oliver Daemen, and 82-year-old Wally Funk on Jin Van Horn, Texas. Mike Wall is the author of " Out There " (Grand Central Publishing, 2018 illustrated by Karl Tate), a book about the search for alien life. New Shepard passengers experience a few minutes of weightlessness and get to see the curve of Earth against the blackness of space. The New Shepard rocket comes down for a vertical, powered landing shortly after liftoff, and the capsule floats back to Earth a few minutes later, relying on parachutes to slow its descent. Unlike the piloted Unity, New Shepard is an autonomous system. That milestone is expected to be met later this year, after technicians finish maintenance work on Virgin Galactic's VSS Unity space plane and its carrier aircraft, VMS Eve. But so far, all of Virgin Galactic's flights have been test missions Branson's company has not yet begun full commercial operations. Like Blue Origin, Virgin Galactic has four crewed spaceflights under its belt. (Lai apparently flew for free, as Davidson would have Blue Origin doesn't seem to charge its celebrity passengers.) For some perspective: The company's chief competitor in the suborbital space tourism business, Richard Branson's Virgin Galactic, currently charges $450,000 per seat. It's unclear how much Allen, the Hagles, Kitchen and Nield paid for their seats on Thursday's flight Blue Origin has not disclosed its ticket prices. Blue Origin launches Michael Strahan and crew of 5 on record-setting suborbital spaceflight In photos: William Shatner launches to space on Blue Origin's New Shepard Blue Origin: Quiet plans for spaceships Lai was joined on NS-20 by five paying customers: businessman and angel investor Marty Allen, the former CEO of Party America Sharon Hagle, founder of the education nonprofit SpaceKids Global Marc Hagle, president and CEO of the property-development company Tricor International (and Sharon's husband) entrepreneur Jim Kitchen, who since 2010 has taught at the University of North Carolina’s Kenan-Flagler Business School and George Nield, the president of Commercial Space Technologies, LLC. Knights, known as "Crewmember 7" guided the astronauts throughout their flight preparations. You just have to feel it," Lai told Blue Origin employee Sarah Knights after exiting the capsule. "I don't know that I could even, words could do that justice. (The flight was delayed again, to Thursday, because of predicted high winds at Launch Site One over the previous two days.)ĭavidson's seat was taken by someone with a very special connection to NS-20 and the vehicle that flew it - longtime Blue Origin employee Gary Lai, the chief architect of the New Shepard system. But Davidson backed out after the mission was delayed, for unspecified reasons, from March 23 to March 29. NS-20 was supposed to continue this pattern, with "Saturday Night Live" star Pete Davidson initially signing on to fly. And the third, which launched in December, counted NFL Hall of Famer and "Good Morning America" host Michael Strahan among its passengers. The company's second crewed flight, in October 2021, was headlined by "Star Trek" star William Shatner. The first crewed New Shepard mission sent Blue Origin founder and CEO Jeff Bezos, aviation pioneer Wally Funk and two other people to the final frontier on July 20, 2021.
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