Blue Origin and New SHEPARD RLV

www.bbc.com

Jeff Bezos launches to space aboard New Shepard rocket ship

The world's richest man and three other passengers return safely just over 10 minutes after launch.
www.bbc.com www.bbc.com

www.reuters.com

'Road to space': billionaire Bezos has successful suborbital jaunt

Jeff Bezos, the world's richest person, soared some 66.5 miles (107 km) above the Texas desert aboard his company Blue Origin's New Shepard launch vehicle on Tuesday and returned safely to Earth, a historic suborbital flight that helps usher in a new era of space tourism.
www.reuters.com www.reuters.com

apnews.com

Jeff Bezos blasts into space on own rocket: 'Best day ever!'

Jeff Bezos has made it into space, riding his own company's rocket. It was Blue Origin's first flight with people on board after 15 test flights.
apnews.com apnews.com
 
TomcatViP said:
I heard Bezos talk about his vision of space and was amazed how aware he is now, specifically mentioning how earth industry will be off-earth based in the future (we have talked about that on this forum).
With this kind of unique awareness and his position as a successful entrepreneur, the best that could happen to both him and Elon would be them to partner.

They should have an attentive look at what really divide them and start overcoming whatever really is left in b/w.
Click to expand...
They have different goals. Elon's vision is humans on Mars. Jeff Bezos' vision is SP-413 (space colonies / LEO manufacturing and, while I don't think he's specifically mentioned it, mining on the moon). Assuming they have the funds to support it, may as well do BOTH. I do wonder what form New Armstrong will take. Might be simpler for Bezos to just buy Starships from SpaceX.
 
One thing that bothers me the most. The preparation to the complete space flight of Jeff Bezos. I do not think that he was trained like usual astronauts that are launched in space
 
bearnard97 said:
One thing that bothers me the most. The preparation to the complete space flight of Jeff Bezos. I do not think that he was trained like usual astronauts that are launched in space
Click to expand...

It's because it just goes suborbital for 5 minutes - 2 km/s and 100 km high. Not orbit (9 km/s) for days and weeks and months of time. So no need for special training.
 
bearnard97 said:
One thing that bothers me the most. The preparation to the complete space flight of Jeff Bezos. I do not think that he was trained like usual astronauts that are launched in space
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His life, his (fully automated, hence no need for a pilot) vehicle, his call. Judging by the way the flight went for him and the other passengers, undergoing full regular astronaut training would have been significant (pardon the pun) overkill. Vehicle status and location was fully monitored and known on the ground at all times, so no need for any wilderness survival training. For the market segment that this vehicle is designed for, requiring months of training for a few minutes of weightlessness would be a near prohibitive disincentive for potential customers that financially can afford the flight but don't have the time for extensive training programs. It's a little bit like asking why Concorde passengers didn't have to go through the full training program for supersonic fighter pilots before buckling in for a champagne fuelled hop across the pond.
 
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martinbayer said:
bearnard97 said:
One thing that bothers me the most. The preparation to the complete space flight of Jeff Bezos. I do not think that he was trained like usual astronauts that are launched in space
Click to expand...
His life, his (fully automated, hence no need for a pilot) vehicle, his call. Judging by the way the flight went for him and the other passengers, undergoing full regular astronaut training would have been significant (pardon the pun) overkill. Vehicle status and location was fully monitored and known on the ground at all times, so no need for any wilderness survival training. For the market segment that this vehicle is designed for, requiring months of training for a few minutes of weightlessness would be a near prohibitive disincentive for potential customers that financially can afford the flight but don't have the time for extensive training programs. It's a little bit like asking why Concorde passengers didn't have to go through the full training program for supersonic fighter pilots before buckling in for a champagne fuelled hop across the pond.
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Thank you for your explanation. Space tourism sounds cool and staggering, however, I may sound a bit conservative and sort of old-fashioned in a nutshell boring :)) Long story short, a good way might be if Jeff Bezos dedicates more attention and efforts to environmental issues. There are many space agencies that use space technology in order to take part in an environmental campaign.
 
@bearnard97 : Well, if we can put all the nuclear power plants into space in the next 20 years, wouldn't that sound like the most amazing environmental campaign ever?!

Note: that's really what we should do
 
bearnard97 said:
One thing that bothers me the most. The preparation to the complete space flight of Jeff Bezos. I do not think that he was trained like usual astronauts that are launched in space
Click to expand...
Why would he be? They're cargo, not astronauts. Even the way they did dress-up with the flight suits is silly.
 
I need to admit that that space tourism campaign can boost 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.
 
bearnard97 said:
I need to admit that that space tourism campaign can boost 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.
Click to expand...

*Might* be. Note that Virgin Galactic, Blue origin and SpaceX are *roughly* contemporary, and began with roughly similar dreams and funding. But one of them is a major aerospace company worth $74 billion, while the other two are niche companies worth at best one-tenth as much.

Space tourism is great. But suborbital space tourism so far seems a pretty inefficient way to building a "real space business."
 
In passing, what puzzles me with Bezos is: why don't he upgrade the New Shepard capsule for orbital flight ? and boom, there you are, a Dragon 2 competitor. Also CTS-100. Would be a nice step to compete with SpaceX. Drat, with 2 km/s already available with New Shepard, he only needs to add a 7 km/s reusable suborbital SSTO (did I just said Falcon 9 booster ?) below it to get an orbital system.

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.

Bezos needs to set a clearer course.
 
Archibald said:
In passing, what puzzles me with Bezos is: why don't he upgrade the New Shepard capsule for orbital flight ?
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Because it's nowhere nohow anything like an orbital capsule. No heat shield. No RCS thrusters. No docking port. No long-term life support systems. Those windows would melt.

While we've all asked ourselves "why hasn't NASA used convicted murderers, rapists and politicians to test the usefulness of 1975 Chrysler Cordobas with rich Corinthian leather as re-entry vehicles," the sad fact is that we know that 1970's land yachts, like the New Shepherd capsule, are entirely inappropriate orbital re-entry vehicles.
 
Thank you. Sometimes the bleedin' obvious needs pointing out.
 
Actuall
Orionblamblam said:
Archibald said:
In passing, what puzzles me with Bezos is: why don't he upgrade the New Shepard capsule for orbital flight ?
Click to expand...

Because it's nowhere nohow anything like an orbital capsule. No heat shield. No RCS thrusters. No docking port. No long-term life support systems. Those windows would melt.

While we've all asked ourselves "why hasn't NASA used convicted murderers, rapists and politicians to test the usefulness of 1975 Chrysler Cordobas with rich Corinthian leather as re-entry vehicles," the sad fact is that we know that 1970's land yachts, like the New Shepherd capsule, are entirely inappropriate orbital re-entry vehicles.
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Actually, NASA has many useful projects like the one that I`ve recently found. The project by NASA the main purpose of which is to colonize Venus with some floating platforms.
 
Michel Van said:
With 60 years delay Wally Funk finally got there Wings
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Unfortunately, it looks like she may not get them now either. From the story I just posted:
Nine days later Mr Bezos blasted his way up to 66 miles on his New Shepard rocket.

But while Mr Bezos was somewhere way above the Texas desert the FAA was busy revising its rules.

It inserted a new clause that would-be astronauts must also perform "activities during flight that were essential to public safety, or contributed to human space flight safety."

An FAA spokeswoman said it had decided to "change the focus" of the rules to "align more directly to the FAA’s role to protect public safety during commercial space operations."

There was no clarification from the FAA on whether the timing of the change was specifically related to Mr Bezos's flight.

The Amazon founder's 10-minute trip to space was fully automated.

He and three others - his brother Mark, 18-year-old Dutch physics student Oliver Daemen, and veteran aviator Wally Funk, 82 - were passengers.

To qualify for commercial astronaut wings, flyers also have to be an employee of the space company, which further ruled out all of them apart from Mr Bezos himself.

It also appeared to mean that future paying customers of any space tourism company would not receive astronaut wings from the FAA.

In Sir Richard's case the implications of the rule change were far less clear cut.

He flew before the change was made and the FAA order instituting it said the "effective date" was July 20, 2021.

Sir Richard was also designated as a member of the crew, rather than a passenger.

He was a "mission specialist" tasked with "evaluating the Virgin Galactic astronaut experience," which could potentially mean he still qualified.

Before obtaining FAA astronaut wings a person has to be nominated, and a spokeswoman said it currently had no nominations under consideration.

The new rules did allow for "honourary" awards of astronaut wings to people who "demonstrated an extraordinary contribution to the commercial human space flight industry."

An honourary award would be at the discretion of Wayne Monteith, the FAA's Associate Administrator for Commercial Space Transportation.

For decades astronaut wings were only awarded by the US military and Nasa.

The FAA began bestowing commercial astronaut wings in 2004 when Virgin Galactic's SpaceShipOne reached space.

All such awards so far have been to pilots, apart from in 2019 when wings were received by Beth Moses, Virgin Galactic's chief astronaut instructor, who went up as a "test passenger.
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They might give her honourary wings to try to head off some of the inevitable incoming firestorm (though somehow I am doubtful, given the way this has been handled). One thing is for certain; the Space Tourism industry in the USA is now pretty much dead as a doornail, at least under the present administration. Let the lawsuits (and concurrent screaming in Congress and at State level) commence.
 
To be fair, for several years before these two maiden flights there were debates within the spaceflight community on whether someone who buys a ticket for a trip like this really deserves the title of astronaut. In my opinion, just give it to them. It'll be something nice for them to put on the wall that will have no real weight in the professional world. To finish, I'd like to quote something I read in another thread about this controversy:

"Its all suborbital anyway. Just make that a class of its own and call it a day.

Can we all be real here? They sat in a seat... until they didn't for 3 minutes and then had to again.

Just call suborbital its own designation and move on."
 
Kudos to Blue Origin, my bosses son works for them. Closer to an amusement ride than Virgin but, a stepping point none the less. Now Blue Origin can work towards a SpaceX type orbital system, better to have at least three commercial space contractors, fosters innovations and some missions type could be split between the three as well, sort of specialty missions based upon vehicle/system types, if there is cooperation. NASA going forward with Saturn 5 Part II (SLS), does not move them forward with the others sorry to say, still stuck in the Apollo-era, just my opinion.
 
Many non-astronauts spent real time in orbit before these recent groups barely breached the atmosphere:

www.wikiwand.com

Space tourism - Wikiwand

Space tourism is human space travel for recreational purposes. There are several different types of space tourism, including orbital, suborbital and lunar space...
www.wikiwand.com
 
Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) made New rules
What Say "Astronaut hopefuls must be part of the flight crew and make contributions to space flight safety"...

..what ever this Bullshit means.
for moment Branson Bezos and there crew are Official not Astronaut !
What for insult for miss Wally Funk !
 
Michel Van said:
Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) made New rules
What Say "Astronaut hopefuls must be part of the flight crew and make contributions to space flight safety"...

..what ever this Bullshit means.
for moment Branson Bezos and there crew are Official not Astronaut !
What for insult for miss Wally Funk !
Click to expand...
Also an insult to the 18-year-old what's-his-face, every bit the astronaut as Wally Funk. Honestly, why do people obsess over her?
 
Orionblamblam said:
Michel Van said:
Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) made New rules
What Say "Astronaut hopefuls must be part of the flight crew and make contributions to space flight safety"...

..what ever this Bullshit means.
for moment Branson Bezos and there crew are Official not Astronaut !
What for insult for miss Wally Funk !
Click to expand...
Also an insult to the 18-year-old what's-his-face, every bit the astronaut as Wally Funk. Honestly, why do people obsess over her?
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I think it's because she actually underwent the same intensive training that other astronauts endured in the 1960's and passed with flying colors but was screwed over at the last minute over her gender.
 
alberchico said:
Orionblamblam said:
Michel Van said:
Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) made New rules
What Say "Astronaut hopefuls must be part of the flight crew and make contributions to space flight safety"...

..what ever this Bullshit means.
for moment Branson Bezos and there crew are Official not Astronaut !
What for insult for miss Wally Funk !
Click to expand...
Also an insult to the 18-year-old what's-his-face, every bit the astronaut as Wally Funk. Honestly, why do people obsess over her?
Click to expand...
I think it's because she actually underwent the same intensive training that other astronauts endured in the 1960's and passed with flying colors but was screwed over at the last minute over her gender.
Click to expand...
She was not "screwed over" AT ALL. She was not a NASA astronaut. The training she underwent was privately funded. I might get myself fighter pilot training, but the Air Force isn't going to strap my ass into an F-22 just because I got trained by an outsider.
 
I wonder if that is not some sort of payback for B.O having failed to deliver their engine that way.
 
To say frankly, I am not a big fan of space tourism. I guess there is more important stuff to be made than launching tourists in space. Private space companies need to make new great technology for this something more than just earning money with the help of space tourism.
 
bearnard97 said:
To say frankly, I am not a big fan of space tourism. I guess there is more important stuff to be made than launching tourists in space. Private space companies need to make new great technology for this something more than just earning money with the help of space tourism.
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They going to just do it for free? That's not how the real world works. It takes money to make things happen.
 
What for development in Human Landing System.

First Bezos complain that NASA cannot pay $2bn on Blue Origin HLS
Then lobby like hell in Capitol Hill in search for more money
And now he offer NASA $2bn from own Fortune, if they give second HLS contract to Blue Origin ?

I don't known if that is legal in USA
but in Germany, a public prosecutor would start a investigation into Corruption...
 

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