Blue Origin sees clear skies for Bezos and Reuters By crew for home space flight

By Eric M. Johnson

(Reuters) – Millionaire American Jeff Bezos and his three crew members are on a permanent training course on Sunday to prepare for the inaugural flight of the Blue Origin company to the edge of space scheduled for Tuesday.

A suborbital shot from a high-plains site in the West Texas desert is a crucial test for Blue Origin’s New Shepard spacecraft, which is 60 meters high (18.3 meters) and a combination of a fully autonomous rocket and capsule. Bezos will take advantage of the space tourism market he can win.

The 11-minute journey from the company’s Launch Site One facility will include the oldest person in space – the 82-year-old Wally Funk female aircraft – and the youngest – Oliver Daemen’s 18-year-old physicist. https://www.reuters.com/article/us-space-exploration-blueorigin/teenager-to-fly-with-bezos-in-inaugural-space-tourism-flight-idUSKBN2EL1ZJ?feedType=RSS&feedName=technologyNews. Bezos, founder and current executive chairman, will join the Blue Origin presentation https://www.reuters.com/business/media-telecom/whats-next-amazons-bezos-look-his-instagram-2021-07- Amazon. com Inc. 03 (NASDAQ :), and his brother Mark Bezos.

The https://www.blueorigin.com/news-archive/first-human-flight-updates mission would represent the world’s first unmanned flight into space with all civilian crews. Blue Origin, which has no astronauts on its staff https://www.reuters.com/business/aerospace-defense/bezos-blue-origin-make-history-with-unpiloted-civilian-space-flight-2021-07 -14 or trained staff on board, expressed confidence at a meeting on Sunday.

“We are not currently working on any open issues and New Shepard is ready to fly,” said Flight Director Steve Lanius, who said the weather forecast is suitable for the scheduled departure at 8am on Tuesday (13:00 GMT).

The new Shepard will launch nine days after Richard Branson’s space tourism company, Virgin Galactic, successfully completed a suborbital flight https://www.reuters.com/lifestyle/science/virgin-galactics-branson-ready-space-launch -that- rocket-plane-2021-07-11 A British billionaire departing from New Mexico inside his rocket plane.

Blue Origin’s training program, according to the company, includes safety sessions, a space flight simulation, a review of the rocket and its operations, and instructions for floating the capsules around the ship’s cabin after the Earth’s gravity spills.

Bezos and his crew began the 14-hour program on Sunday and said they would be ready to “live a lifetime flight,” said Ariane Cornell, sales director for the Blue Origin astronauts. Cornell said Funk was keen to make some jumps during the flight.

The new Shepard, which cannot be flown from inside the spacecraft, is named after Alan Shepard, the first American in space in a suborbital flight within 1961 to pioneer NASA’s Mercury program.

The new Shepard, like the Virgin Galactic flight, will not enter orbit around Earth, but the crew will take about 100 miles before returning the capsule by parachute. Virgin Galactic’s flight reached 53 miles (86 km) from Earth.

Space transportation company billionaire businessman Elon Musk, SpaceX, has pledged to go even higher in September, sending a civilian crew into orbit for a few days in a Crew Dragon capsule.

Explaining the tensions of the high-end “billionaire space race,” Blue Origin described Virgin Galactic as far beyond the 62-kilometer mark (100 km) – called the Kármán Line – set by an international aeronautical organization. The boundary between the Earth’s atmosphere and space.

NASA’s U.S. space agency and the U.S. Air Force define an astronaut as anyone who has flown more than 80 kilometers (80 km), just as Branson achieved with his flight.

Blue Origin’s next flight is likely to be in late September or early October, said CEO Bob Smith. Smith said the “willingness to pay remains fairly high” for people interested in future flights.