Blue Origin recently sent its latest batch of space tourists to the final frontier.
New Shepard lifted off from Blue Origin’s West Texas launch site today at 11:25 a.m. EST (1625 GMT; 10:25 a.m. ET in Texas), after a brief delay caused by “unauthorized personnel at the border,” according to the Blue Origin stream.
The six people inside the vehicle’s capsule were entrepreneur and pilot Tim Drexler; Linda Edwards, a retired obstetrician/gynecologist; real estate developer Ellen Fernandez; entrepreneur Alberto Gutierrez; Jim Hendren, a retired US Air Force colonel who founded the company Hendren Plastics Inc.; and Laura Stiles, Blue Origin’s director of New Shepard launch operations.
Styles was a late addition to the team. He replaced Andrew Yaffe, who had to drop out due to illness, but will fly on future New Shepard missions. According to Blue Origin.
Sextet enjoyed in a few minutes weightlessness And saw the Earth against the blackness of space.
He also earned his astronaut wings, as New Shepard took him aboard Kármán lineThe 62-mile-high (100-kilometer) boundary that is widely recognized as the beginning of outer space. (However, this is not unanimous; NASA and the U.S. Air Force both consider space launch from 50 miles or 80 km above Earth.) Telemetry during today’s flight indicated that the capsule reached an altitude of about 350,000 feet (106,680 meters).
NS-38 ended early, as do all New Shepard flights. At 7 minutes and 20 seconds after liftoff, the vehicle’s rocket returned to Earth for a powered touchdown at its designated landing pad. About three minutes later the capsule followed, leaving a cloud of dust over the west Texas desert and descending softly under a parachute.
Blue Origin has now sent 98 people into space on its 17 manned space flights the first of which Held on July 20, 2021 – 52nd anniversary of apollo 11 Moon landing. That number includes 92 different individuals, as six people have ridden the capsule twice.
Blue Origin has not disclosed its ticket prices. For perspective, Virgin GalacticThe company’s main competitor in the suborbital space tourism industry, alleges $600,000 per seat.
