PATREONItems tagged with blue origin
In the modern era, there is a bit of a commercial space race occurring, vying for NASA’s approval and monetary support. Among the competitors, Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin, leading a team of companies, has taken a step forward by delivering an engineering sample of their lunar lander to NASA’s Johnson Space Center. The Blue Origin-led Human Landing System National Team, comprised of Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, and Draper, has moved this project to Johnson Space Center (JSC) to show off what they made. Standing at 40 feet tall and weighing in at a not-very-light weight, the lunar lander is set to showcase the multi-stage architecture; wherein there is both a descent and ascent...
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If you were alive 50 years ago, and old enough to cast your eyes on a television, you no doubt remember the launch of Apollo 11. On July 16th, 1969 at 9:32am ET, the Apollo 11 Saturn V lifted off from Pad 39A at Cape Canaveral, FL, sending astronauts Neil Armstrong, Michael Collins, and Buzz Aldrin on their journey towards the Moon. Apollo 11 made one and a half orbits around the Earth after liftoff before performing a burn to put in a trajectory to intercept the Moon. The Columbia command module and Eagle lander carrying the three astronauts entered lunar orbit on July 19th, and on July 20th, Aldrin and Armstrong detached from Columbia and descended towards the lunar surface. On July...
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Last summer, Blue Origin announced that they would be working with the ESA and NASA to create a lunar settlement. The private space company has kept most of the details of their plans under wraps until recently. Jeff Bezos, the founder of Blue Origin, revealed this past week the company’s “Blue Moon” lander and BE-7 engine at a private event. United States Vice President Mike Pence announced earlier this year that they hoped the get astronauts on the surface of the moon within the next five years. NASA recently requested more funding for their Advanced Cislunar and Surface Capabilities (ACSC) program. They plan to first send robots to the moon and then later send astronauts....
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Jeff Bezos surpassed Bill Gates to become the richest man in the world last year with an estimated net worth of over $90 billion; his net worth is now said to be around $130 billion. Bezos has more cooking than Amazon alone and one of his cooler ventures is Blue Origin, a lesser known private space venture than SpaceX. Bezos has stated that Blue Origin will work with the ESA and NASA to create a settlement on the moon. The billionaire has stated that he will do whatever needs to be done to make the lunar base a reality. Bezos made the statement last week at an International Airspace Development Conference. The main goal of Blue Origin is to make access to space cheaper starting with the...
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Perhaps one day space travel for tourism will be a common thing. In the here and now, there are select few companies pushing the idea, including Blue Origin, a privately-funded aerospace manufacturer and spaceflight services firm founded and run by Amazon founder Jeff Bezos. For the right amount of money—a lot of money, no doubt—you can book a flight to space as a tourist, just make sure you go tinkle before hopping on board New Shepard, the space vehicle that will lift you above the skies. While early space tourism is separated by wealth—Blue Origin's ticket prices have not yet been announced, though competitor Virgin Galactic charges up to a quarter of a million dollars—Mother Nature (and anatomy)...
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Forget the Bahamas. What if your next vacation could be in space? Jeff Bezos has just offered a glimpse of the Blue Origin's New Shepard space tourism capsule.Bezos recently remarked, “Our New Shepard flight-test program is focused on demonstrating the performance and robustness of the system. In parallel, we've been designing the capsule interior with an eye toward precision engineering, safety and comfort.” The New Shepard features seats that can be tilted back so the passengers can look up as the rocket lifts off. The capsule measures 530 cubic feet or over ten times the room Alan Shepard, the capsule’s namesake, had on his Mercury flight. The capsule seats a total of ten people and allows...
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Reusability is the name of game with rockets from Blue Origin and SpaceX. Back in early April, the Blue Origin New Shepard reusable rocket booster made its third suborbital flight (reaching a height of 339,138 feet) and successfully touched down on its landing pad at the end of the mission. At the time, we were presented with an external chase view of the New Shepard landing on its pad, which is impressive enough. However, Blue Origin decided this week to give space geeks another more impressive view of that same landing to peruse via YouTube: a view from the vent camera that is mounted just below the New Shepard’s ring fin. Needless to say, the view is breathtaking, as we can clearly see the...
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Blue Origin New ShepardA new space race is taking place today, and it’s being dominated by Silicon Valley companies looking to make space travel more affordable for military, commercial and civilian launches. In November, we saw Blue Origin’s New Shepard space launch system make an incredible voyage to a suborbital height of 62 miles, and then safely land its BE-3 rocket back to Earth. At the time, Elon Musk congratulated Blue Origin (which is helmed by Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos) for its accomplishment, but noted that what SpaceX was trying to achieve with its reusable Dragon 9 rockets was a much harder feat and not directly comparable. Congrats to Jeff Bezos and the BO team for achieving VTOL on...
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Elon Musk’s SpaceX hasn’t been able to find complete success when it comes to testing a completely reusable rocket for commercial space travel, but SpaceX’s failures were just greater incentive for Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos. You see, Bezos owns a private space firm called Blue Origin, and while it seems to fly under radar compared to the immense press that SpaceX receives, the company just celebrated an incredible milestone in the efforts to advance reusable rockets for future space travel. Blue Origin launched its New Shepard space launch system, which consists of a BE-3 rocket engine and a top-mounted crew capsule. New Shepard, which is named after famed Mercury and Apollo astronaut Alan Shepard,...
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It won’t be that long before space is a vacation destination. Space flight company Blue Origin announced that it has completed the rocket engine for its New Shepard spaceship and plans to begin tests before the end of the year. “The BE-3 has now been fired for more than 30,000 seconds over the course of 450 tests,” said Jeff Bezos, Blue Origin founder and Amazon CEO. “We test, learn, refine and then test again to push our engines. The Blue Origin team did an outstanding job exploring the corners of what the BD-3 can do and soon we’ll put it to the ultimate test of flight.” Tickets aren’t on sale just yet, but Blue Origin felt comfortable enough with its progress to start getting the word out....
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