Blue Origin set for historic first human flight of its New Shepard system

[pakarinen]

Congratulations to the team! Admittedly I was a bit worried as the capsule descended at a relatively high speed. At impact it was traveling at 16mph, which I'm sure was a significant bump for the crew, nonetheless it was a successful (and safe) mission.

Yeah, I was looking for the air blast "puff" and thought they landed kind of fast.

I admit I was wondering for awhile in the beginning if we we're going to witness "Bezos go *BOOM*".

[helicon]

There is an avalanche of articles in the media today about the launch and what it means for Bezos.

[bearnard00]

Although, I need to admit that that space tourism campaign can be a plan of boosting the economy of these companies and they can advance their spacecrafts and other technology. So it might be a good plan in advancing toward real space business.

[GCoyote]

Although, I need to admit that that space tourism campaign can be a plan of boosting the economy of these companies and they can advance their spacecrafts and other technology. So it might be a good plan in advancing toward real space business.

That was the idea from the very beginning.

Virgin Galactic intends to scale up to exo-atmospheric and possibly hypersonic passenger travel. Literally any point on Earth in under four hours. I frankly don't see a market for that but I could be wrong.

Blue Origin plans to compete directly with SpaceX, Orbital ATK and the rest despite having fallen several years behind. IIRC they have contracts for engines and other launch components but nothing bigger than that. Their next launch system, New Glenn will have to succeed very quickly for this to have any chance of success.

SpaceX and Orbital ATK have already pushed launch costs down by 70-85% percent for some payloads. That is going to be hard to overcome without good technology and smart business plans.

[AstroBee]

Yeah, I was looking for the air blast "puff" and thought they landed kind of fast.

If you watch the landing, there was a significant puff of air but in real time it looks like the dust flying up was from the actual impact. In reality, it's from the air just a 1/2 second before impact.
Also, not sure if you watched all of the pre-flight videos but they showed the design of the chairs that everyone is strapped into. There's about 12" of recoil in the chairs that I'm sure absorbs much of the hit.

[bearnard00]

I think Blue Origin dithered and scattered too much after their early November 2015 success. New Glenn led them nowhere... plus their partnership with ULA creating a competitor to New Glenn... not very convincing path forward.

[GCoyote]

New Glenn has paying customers booked but the first actual launch is still a year away at least.

https://www.space.com/blue-origin-new-g ... aunch-2022