![]() ![]() However, Blue Origin isn’t quite as black as it has been. “I joke with people that if you want to see what a billionaire’s clubhouse looks like, go visit Blue Origin,” he said at a public workshop last week in Washington. One of those is Dan Rasky of NASA Ames, who visited the company as part of an effort to develop a technology roadmap for commercial RLVs. ![]() ![]() ![]() Those who have gotten a look inside the company, though, have been duly impressed. The company has been closely guarded, revealing few details about its developments: its posting in January 2007 about its first test flight (which took place the previous November) has been its biggest bit of publicity. While the company has done a few test flights in 2006-2007 that required experimental permits from the FAA’s Office of Commercial Space Transportation, it hasn’t done any such flights recently, and speculation continues about what the company is, or isn’t, up to, and how long it might be before they have a vehicle flying. Backed by founder Jeff Bezos-and thus without the funding concerns of many other companies in this field-the company has been working for several years on its “New Shepard” vehicle that takes off and lands vertically. One of the most intriguing NewSpace companies is Blue Origin, perhaps because they’re also one of the most secretive. Illustration of Blue Origin's orbital crew vehicle, designed to be launched on an Atlas 5, as shown on a NASA slide at an FAA conference last week. The launch marks the third space tourism flight for Blue Origin, the company Bezos, founder and executive chairman of retail giant, formed two decades ago, and the company’s first with a crew of six passengers.Tracking the entrepreneurial space industry Saturday’s flight was expected to reach a maximum height of about 65 miles – just above the internationally recognized boundary of space known as the Karman Line, roughly 62 miles (100 km) above Earth. The Besses made history as the first parent-child pair to fly in space together, according to Blue Origin. They were joined by four lesser-known, wealthy customers who paid undisclosed but presumably hefty sums for their New Shepard seats: space industry executive Dylan Taylor, engineer-investor Evan Dick, venture capitalist Lane Bess and his 23-year-old son, Cameron Bess. The other is Michael Strahan, 50, a retired National Football League star and co-anchor of ABC television’s Good Morning America show. A decade later, Shepard walked on the moon as commander of the Apollo 14 mission, famously hitting two golf balls on the lunar surface.Ĭhurchley was one of two honorary, non-paying guest passengers chosen by Blue Origin for Saturday’s flight. The spacecraft itself is named for Alan Shepard, who in 1961 made history as the second person, and the first American, to travel into space – a 15-minute suborbital flight as one of Nasa’s original “Mercury Seven” astronauts. Voices of Churchley and her crewmates exclaiming excitement at the ride could be heard in audio transmissions from the capsule played during a live launch webcast by Blue Origin as the vehicle neared the climax of its flight. The Blue Origin crew, from left: Dylan Taylor, Lane Bess, Cameron Bess, Laura Shepard Churchley, Michael Strahan and Evan Dick. ![]()
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