A Blue Origin New Shepard rocket launches from Launch Site One in West Texas, north of Van Horn
Texas:
Jeff Bezos’s Blue Origin successfully completed its fourth crewed spaceflight on Thursday, a ten-minute joyride beyond the planet’s atmosphere and back again.
The New Shepard suborbital rocket lifted off from the company’s Launch Site One Base in western Texas at 8:58 a.m. local time (1358 GMT) with six crew members.
The crew included Gary Lai, the chief architect of the New Shepard program, as well as five paying clients – although ticket prices have not been disclosed.
“I felt my skin pulling taut,” Lai said of the rocket ride.
After Lai was joined by comedian Pete Davidson, boyfriend of reality star Kim Kardashian, her participation was canceled without giving any reason.
After launch, the reusable, zero greenhouse gas emissions rocket landed vertically on a pad while the capsule continued to rise, crossing the Karman Line marking the beginning of space 100 kilometers (62 mi) high.
The passengers enjoyed a few minutes of weightlessness and deployed their slopes and swam to the surface for a gentle desert landing, taking in the glory of Earth before re-entering the capsule’s atmosphere.
Blue Origin’s past flights include its founder Bezos as well as Star Trek icon William Shatner.
After years of promise, the space tourism sector is finally on the move.
Elon Musk’s SpaceX is targeting to fly three tycoons and a former astronaut to the International Space Station on the Axiom-1 mission next week — though the crew involved say they’d rather do serious research work than go on vacation. are doing.
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