And next week, the company plans to take four paying customers on a flight to the International Space Station, which orbits about 200 miles above Earth.īlue Origin does have plans to build a rocket powerful enough to reach orbit, called the New Glenn. The company completed the first-ever all-civilian flight to orbit last September, taking a billionaire and three of his chosen crewmates on a three-day trip. SpaceX is the only private company that offers trips to orbit. Strahan wrote a message for the passengers on Thursday’s flight that was read to them by ground control: “This is the best ride you will ever have, but it’s way too short.” Since then, Blue Origin made headlines for flying other well-known names on two subsequent flights, including Star Trek star William Shatner and Good Morning America host Michael Strahan. From building cheaper rockets and designing new uses for satellites to imagining futuristic space hotels, the industry has attracted record levels of investment, according to data collected by analytics firm Space Capital.Īfter years of quiet development, Blue Origin’s space tourism rocket made its crewed launch debut last year with Bezos, flying alongside a heroine of the space community, Wally Funk, as well as his brother Mark Bezos and a paying customer. “Pictures don’t do it justice,” he added.īusiness activity in space - largely led by SpaceX - is booming. He described outer space as the “blackest black I’ve ever seen,” adding that it was “breathtaking.” Nield called it “the thrill of a lifetime.” “It was an out-of-body experience,” Kitchen said. Other passengers on the livestream described the view as “incredible.” “I did feel a little bit nauseous, for sure.” “It was intense, and I did get a little bit of a feeling of vertigo,” Lai told Blue Origin’s Sarah Knights, who heads communications with the passengers during flight. On the livestream, the passengers could be heard cheering as the capsule made its touchdown, and moments later, they exited the capsule, smiling and waving. The passengers’ New Shepard capsule, which is fully autonomous, deployed plumes of parachutes after diving back into the thickest part of the Earth’s atmosphere and landed with a puff of sand in the Texas desert. Lai’s crewmates included Marty Allen, an investor and the former CEO of a party supply store Jim Kitchen, an entrepreneur and business professor George Nield, a former associate administrator for the Federal Aviation Administration Office of Commercial Space Transportation Marc Hagle, an Orlando real estate developer, and his wife, Sharon Hagle, who founded a space-focused nonprofit. Gary Lai, who has been with Blue Origin for 18 years and holds several patents related to the New Shepard rocket’s design, flew in Davidson’s place and was the sole non-paying customer on the flight. The company cited the need for additional ground tests on the New Shepard rocket as the reason for the delay. This flight had been slated to include Saturday Night Live star Pete Davidson, but he dropped out of the mission after Blue Origin announced a schedule change earlier this month. It includes Marty Allen, Sharon Hagle, Marc Hagle, Jim Kitchen, Gary Lai, and Dr. Blue Origin is conducting its fourth human spaceflight on Thursday, March 31.
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