#newshepard
Blue Origin to fly six suborbital space travelers next month, including pioneer astronaut’s daughter
The crew for Blue Origin’s next suborbital spaceflight includes, clockwise from top left, Bess Ventures founder Lane Bess; his son Cameron Bess; investor Evan Dick; Good Morning America co-anchor Michael Strahan; Laura Shepard Churchley, the eldest daughter of the late NASA astronaut Alan Shepard; and space industry executive/philanthropist Dylan Taylor. (Photos via Blue Origin)
Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin space venture is planning to fly six suborbital space travelers next month, which would mark a first for the company’s New Shepard spaceship. And that’s far from the only first.
If the NS-19 mission proceeds as planned on Dec. 9, the people on board will include the first father-and-son team in space, the first professional U.S. journalist in space, and the first daughter of an astronaut.to go into space herself.
To cap it all off, the astronaut’s daughter is Laura Shepard Churchley — whose father, Alan Shepard, was the first American in space and the inspiration for New Shepard’s name.
“It’s kind of fun for me to say an original Shepard will fly on the New Shepard,” Churchley, 74, said in a video clip released by Blue Origin. “I’m really excited to be going on a Blue Origin flight. I’m very proud of my father’s legacy.”
“An original Shepard will fly on the New Shepard.” Laura Shepard Churchley, the daughter of the first American in space, will embark on her own journey to space on board
[
](https://twitter.com/hashtag/NewShepard?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw)
on December 9.
[
pic.twitter.com/vQfzTKo1ze
— Blue Origin (@blueorigin)
[
November 23, 2021
](https://twitter.com/blueorigin/status/1463128059717074952?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw)
The journalist is Michael Strahan, who’s a co-anchor for ABC’s “Good Morning America” as well as the host of the “$100,000 Pyramid” game show, a former football star and current TV football analyst.
“Blue Origin, they approached me and they asked if I wanted to be a crew member. And without hesitation, I said yes,” Strahan said on this morning’s GMA show. Strahan will follow in the footsteps of the first journalist in space, Japan’s Toyohiro Akiyama, who went to Russia’s Mir space station in 1990.
Churchley and Strahan will be flying as Blue Origin’s guests. In a news release, Blue Origin said that Strahan would be paid a stipend as a crew member, and that the stipend would be donated to the Boys & Girls Clubs of America.
JUST IN:
[
@michaelstrahan
](https://twitter.com/michaelstrahan?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw)
is going out of this world – literally! – and will be flying on
[
@BlueOrigin
](https://twitter.com/blueorigin?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw)
’s
[
](https://twitter.com/hashtag/NewShepard?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw)
rocket on December 9!
[
[
pic.twitter.com/mwVqRQ7HAB
— Good Morning America (@GMA)
[
November 23, 2021
](https://twitter.com/GMA/status/1463124907001204742?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw)
The father and son are Lane Bess, a longtime tech executive who’s the founder of a venture capital firm called Bess Ventures, and his son Cameron Bess.
They won’t be the first parent and child to fly in space. That distinction belongs to the late NASA astronaut Owen Garriott, who put in a stint on the Skylab space station in 1973 and flew a shuttle mission in 1983; and Richard Garriott, a video-game creator who paid a multimillion-dollar fare to go to the International Space Station in 2008. But they will be the first parent-and-child duo to fly on the same space mission, albeit suborbital rather than orbital.
Rounding out the sextet are Evan Dick, who’s an engineer, investor and managing member of New Jersey-based Dick Holdings LLC; and Dylan Taylor, who is the chairman and CEO of Voyager Space and the founder of a nonprofit group called Space for Humanity.
In a blog item announcing his participation in the Blue Origin mission, Taylor announced “a set of gifts that I would ask all other commercial astronauts to consider.”
“I call it buy one, give one. … It is simple, donate to worthy causes here on Earth the equivalent of the ticket price for the spaceflight,” he wrote. Taylor said his chosen beneficiaries will include Space for Humanity as well as AstroAccess, Edesia Nutrition, the Patti Grace Smith Fellowship and the Brooke Owens Fellowship.
Taylor, Dick and the Besses are paying undisclosed fares for their suborbital space trip.
It hardly seems real, but the journey to my dream of spaceflight begins today. Thrilled to announce that I will be joining
[
@blueorigin
](https://twitter.com/blueorigin?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw)
[
](https://twitter.com/hashtag/NewShepard?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw)
Mission NS-19 on December 9th! Read more here
[
[
pic.twitter.com/P6bKXNRpk9
— Dylan Taylor (@dylan)
[
November 23, 2021
](https://twitter.com/dylan/status/1463122053775736832?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw)
This will be the 19th New Shepard flight since 2015, with 16 uncrewed missions on the list.
All six spacefliers will go through the same routine experienced by Blue Origin’s two previous crews — July’s first-ever foursome, which included Jeff Bezos and his brother Mark, plus aviation pioneer Wally Funk and Dutch teenager Oliver Daemen; and October’s crew of four, which featuring 90-year-old Star Trek actor William Shatner.
The NS-19 crew will head out to Blue Origin’s West Texas launch complex a few days in advance of the Dec. 9 flight, and board the New Shepard spacecraft for a suborbital trip that will give them a few minutes of weightlessness and an astronaut’s-eye view of the curving Earth beneath a black sky. The autonomously piloted trip should last about 10 minutes, from liftoff to the crew capsule’s parachute-aided landing.
The New Shepard booster is designed to land itself separately on a pad not far from where it’ll be launched.
In addition to the passengers, Blue Origin will fly a postcard from each astronaut on behalf of the Club for the Future, the company’s nonprofit educational foundation. The club’s “Postcards to Space” program has sent thousands of messages from students to space and back on New Shepard.
Blue Origin said liftoff is targeted for 9 a.m. CT (7 a.m. PT), with live launch coverage beginning on BlueOrigin.com at T-minus-90 minutes.
Next month’s flight is likely to close out a banner year for commercial human spaceflight. In addition to Blue Origin’s suborbital missions, Virgin Galactic sent its billionaire founder, Richard Branson, on a suborbital test flight of its SpaceShipTwo Unity rocket plane in July. And in September, SpaceX put a billionaire-backed crew into orbit for the philanthropic Inspiration4 mission.
posted by pod_feeder
Blue Origin to fly six suborbital space travelers next month, including pioneer astronaut’s daughter
The crew for Blue Origin’s next suborbital spaceflight includes, clockwise from top left, Bess Ventures founder Lane Bess; his son Cameron Bess; investor Evan Dick; Good Morning America co-anchor Michael Strahan; Laura Shepard Churchley, the eldest daughter of the late NASA astronaut Alan Shepard; and space industry executive/philanthropist Dylan Taylor. (Photos via Blue Origin)
Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin space venture is planning to fly six suborbital space travelers next month, which would mark a first for the company’s New Shepard spaceship. And that’s far from the only first.
If the NS-19 mission proceeds as planned on Dec. 9, the people on board will include the first father-and-son team in space, the first professional U.S. journalist in space, and the first daughter of an astronaut.to go into space herself.
To cap it all off, the astronaut’s daughter is Laura Shepard Churchley — whose father, Alan Shepard, was the first American in space and the inspiration for New Shepard’s name.
“It’s kind of fun for me to say an original Shepard will fly on the New Shepard,” Churchley, 74, said in a video clip released by Blue Origin. “I’m really excited to be going on a Blue Origin flight. I’m very proud of my father’s legacy.”
“An original Shepard will fly on the New Shepard.” Laura Shepard Churchley, the daughter of the first American in space, will embark on her own journey to space on board
[
](https://twitter.com/hashtag/NewShepard?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw)
on December 9.
[
pic.twitter.com/vQfzTKo1ze
— Blue Origin (@blueorigin)
[
November 23, 2021
](https://twitter.com/blueorigin/status/1463128059717074952?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw)
The journalist is Michael Strahan, who’s a co-anchor for ABC’s “Good Morning America” as well as the host of the “$100,000 Pyramid” game show, a former football star and current TV football analyst.
“Blue Origin, they approached me and they asked if I wanted to be a crew member. And without hesitation, I said yes,” Strahan said on this morning’s GMA show. Strahan will follow in the footsteps of the first journalist in space, Japan’s Toyohiro Akiyama, who went to Russia’s Mir space station in 1990.
Churchley and Strahan will be flying as Blue Origin’s guests. In a news release, Blue Origin said that Strahan would be paid a stipend as a crew member, and that the stipend would be donated to the Boys & Girls Clubs of America.
JUST IN:
[
@michaelstrahan
](https://twitter.com/michaelstrahan?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw)
is going out of this world – literally! – and will be flying on
[
@BlueOrigin
](https://twitter.com/blueorigin?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw)
’s
[
](https://twitter.com/hashtag/NewShepard?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw)
rocket on December 9!
[
[
pic.twitter.com/mwVqRQ7HAB
— Good Morning America (@GMA)
[
November 23, 2021
](https://twitter.com/GMA/status/1463124907001204742?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw)
The father and son are Lane Bess, a longtime tech executive who’s the founder of a venture capital firm called Bess Ventures, and his son Cameron Bess.
They won’t be the first parent and child to fly in space. That distinction belongs to the late NASA astronaut Owen Garriott, who put in a stint on the Skylab space station in 1973 and flew a shuttle mission in 1983; and Richard Garriott, a video-game creator who paid a multimillion-dollar fare to go to the International Space Station in 2008. But they will be the first parent-and-child duo to fly on the same space mission, albeit suborbital rather than orbital.
Rounding out the sextet are Evan Dick, who’s an engineer, investor and managing member of New Jersey-based Dick Holdings LLC; and Dylan Taylor, who is the chairman and CEO of Voyager Space and the founder of a nonprofit group called Space for Humanity.
In a blog item announcing his participation in the Blue Origin mission, Taylor announced “a set of gifts that I would ask all other commercial astronauts to consider.”
“I call it buy one, give one. … It is simple, donate to worthy causes here on Earth the equivalent of the ticket price for the spaceflight,” he wrote. Taylor said his chosen beneficiaries will include Space for Humanity as well as AstroAccess, Edesia Nutrition, the Patti Grace Smith Fellowship and the Brooke Owens Fellowship.
Taylor, Dick and the Besses are paying undisclosed fares for their suborbital space trip.
It hardly seems real, but the journey to my dream of spaceflight begins today. Thrilled to announce that I will be joining
[
@blueorigin
](https://twitter.com/blueorigin?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw)
[
](https://twitter.com/hashtag/NewShepard?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw)
Mission NS-19 on December 9th! Read more here
[
[
pic.twitter.com/P6bKXNRpk9
— Dylan Taylor (@dylan)
[
November 23, 2021
](https://twitter.com/dylan/status/1463122053775736832?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw)
This will be the 19th New Shepard flight since 2015, with 16 uncrewed missions on the list.
All six spacefliers will go through the same routine experienced by Blue Origin’s two previous crews — July’s first-ever foursome, which included Jeff Bezos and his brother Mark, plus aviation pioneer Wally Funk and Dutch teenager Oliver Daemen; and October’s crew of four, which featuring 90-year-old Star Trek actor William Shatner.
The NS-19 crew will head out to Blue Origin’s West Texas launch complex a few days in advance of the Dec. 9 flight, and board the New Shepard spacecraft for a suborbital trip that will give them a few minutes of weightlessness and an astronaut’s-eye view of the curving Earth beneath a black sky. The autonomously piloted trip should last about 10 minutes, from liftoff to the crew capsule’s parachute-aided landing.
The New Shepard booster is designed to land itself separately on a pad not far from where it’ll be launched.
In addition to the passengers, Blue Origin will fly a postcard from each astronaut on behalf of the Club for the Future, the company’s nonprofit educational foundation. The club’s “Postcards to Space” program has sent thousands of messages from students to space and back on New Shepard.
Blue Origin said liftoff is targeted for 9 a.m. CT (7 a.m. PT), with live launch coverage beginning on BlueOrigin.com at T-minus-90 minutes.
Next month’s flight is likely to close out a banner year for commercial human spaceflight. In addition to Blue Origin’s suborbital missions, Virgin Galactic sent its billionaire founder, Richard Branson, on a suborbital test flight of its SpaceShipTwo Unity rocket plane in July. And in September, SpaceX put a billionaire-backed crew into orbit for the philanthropic Inspiration4 mission.
posted by pod_feeder
Faszination Weltraum – Die Schattenseiten des wachsenden Verkehrs ins All
Die Schattenseite der Faszination Weltraum
Im Weltraum gibt es immer mehr Verkehr: Welche Folgen hat das für unseren Orbit? Unter anderem bleibt Müll im All zurück, der dringend aufgeräumt werden muss.#Weltraum #All #Weltraumforschung #Weltraumtourismus #Weltraumschrott #Weltraummüll #Raumfahrt #ESA #NASA #Luftfahrt #spacedebris #spacetourism #space #ElonMusk #RichardBranson #JeffBezos #BlueOrigin #VirginGalactic #SpaceX #SpaceShipTwo #NewShepard
Faszination Weltraum – Die Schattenseiten des wachsenden Verkehrs ins All
#SuborbitalFlight #NewShepard #BlueOrigin A little while ago, Blue Origin conducted the first crewed flight, which included owner Jeff Bezos, of its New Shepard rocket.
https://english.tachyonbeam.com/2021/07/20/blue-origins-new-shepard-rocket-made-its-first-crewed-suborbital-flight/
Blue Origin launch will be the 1st fully automated flight with civilian astronauts: report | Space
https://www.space.com/blue-origin-first-astronaut-launch-completely-automated
Blue Origin launch will be the 1st fully automated flight with civilian astronauts: report
By Elizabeth Howell 1 day ago
The crew aboard Blue Origin's first astronaut launch on Tuesday (July 20) will take a giant leap into the unknown when they fly the first automated flight with an all-civilian crew, according to a media report.
Blue Origin will launch four civilians, including the company's billionaire founder Jeff Bezos, on its its suborbital New Shepard rocket on Tuesday from Launch Site One near Van Horn, Texas. There has never before been a fully autonomous suborbital or orbital flight with an all-civilian crew, Teal Group space industry analyst Marco Caceres recently told Reuters.
The 11-minute space shot on a suborbital path will include four people who have never been in space before, although one of them is a highly respected civilian pilot who attempted to make it into the NASA space program in the 1960s.
Related: How to watch Blue Origin launch Jeff Bezos into space on July 20
Live updates: Blue Origin's first astronaut launch updatesThe crew of Blue Origin's First Human Flight are: (from left) founder Jeff Bezos, Mark Bezos, Wally Funk and Oliver Daemon. They will launch on Blue Origin's New Shepard rocket
The crew of Blue Origin's First Human Flight are: (from left) founder Jeff Bezos, Mark Bezos, Wally Funk and Oliver Daemon. They will launch on Blue Origin's New Shepard rocket (Image credit: Blue Origin)That crew member, Mercury 13 aviator Wally Funk, has logged more than 19,600 flight hours as an instructor and pilot, which likely provides her some in-air experience for the "anomalies" astronauts are trained to face.
But the other people will be experiencing a highly dangerous environment for the first time, including billionaire Blue Origin founder Jeff Bezos, his brother Mark (whose background is in advertising), and paying passenger Oliver Daemen, who at age 18 is said to be working towards a pilot's license and plans to study physics.
As any astronaut will tell you, space is inherently dangerous and dozens of professionals have lost their lives during training or operations. Blue Origin does have a terms and conditions document that among other things, requires participants to sign an informed consent document — a common practice among companies that offer risky activities like skydiving.
The company also designed its spacecraft deliberately to accommodate only passengers, not pilots, to increase revenue potential, as presumably each one would be paying money for the opportunity. But what is worrying some observers, Reuters said, is this is the very first crewed flight of New Shepard (although 15 uncrewed tests came before.)
Some "company insiders," who were not named, told Reuters that they would have preferred that Blue Origin flew at least some astronauts or technical experts upon this flight. This would have been useful for collecting "data and technical feedback for a program in its infancy," Reuters wrote, which could help improve the flight experience for later customers.
Image 1 of 3A look inside Blue Origin's New Shepard space capsule, which features passenger seats, each with their own window, around a central covering for the capsule's abort motor.
A look inside Blue Origin's New Shepard space capsule, which features passenger seats, each with their own window, around a central covering for the capsule's abort motor. (Image credit: Blue Origin)The Blue Origin crew will receive two days of training with assistance from two staff members, Reuters reported. While that education pales beside the typical 2.5 years of basic training NASA makes it "astronaut candidates" complete before even being assigned to a flight, the staff members will provide headset instructions during the flight to the Blue Origin customers, too.
Yet there is still some concern that the passengers may not be able to respond adequately to instructions and especially in case of emergency, as they may be distracted or overwhelmed, Reuters reported. "It's kind of like getting on a ride at an amusement park," Caceres told Reuters. "You just trust that everything has been checked out, is in good working order ... and you just sit back and enjoy the ride."
Blue Origin is not alone in offering all-civilian opportunities to untrained astronauts. Business billionaire Jared Isaacman bought seats aboard a SpaceX Crew Dragon for himself and three others (two contest winners and a former childhood cancer patient, all working in fields outside of aerospace), for the Inspiration4 mission slated to launch later this year. The rookie crew recently underwent "weightless" training for the first time.
Competitor Virgin Galactic, however, always flies two trained pilots aboard the spaceliner VSS Unity. It also ran several piloted test flights in space (although the definition of whether Virgin Galactic reached space varies) before allowing any passengers to come aboard. When founder Richard Branson took his famous spaceflight on July 11, the crew area included three Virgin Galactic employees and among them, Beth Moses had already been to space on a previous test flight.
