Blue Origin will shortly be launching its ninth space tourism flight, which will carry six private crew members on a 10-minute flight where they will experience weightlessness before coming back in to land.
The crew of NS-28 includes science communicator Emily Calandrelli, also known as The Space Gal, who was educated at MIT and who has hosted science shows on Netflix and YouTube.
You can follow along with the launch of Calandrelli and the five other crew members live on YouTube, with the flight beginning shortly:
According to Blue Origin, “This mission will be the ninth human flight for the New Shepard program and the 28th in its history. To date, the program has flown 43 humans above the Kármán line, the internationally recognized boundary of space.”
Whether or not these flights count as going to space has been the subject of some debate, but the crew members on board do experience weightlessness and will enjoy stunning views of Earth as seen from the edge of space.
In addition to Calandrelli, the crew includes Sharon Hagle, Marc Hagle, Austin Litteral, James (J.D.) Russell, and Henry (Hank) Wolfond. Sharon and Marc Hagle, who are married, are flying on New Shepard for the second time following their previous trip on the NS-20 mission in 2022.
Sharon Hagle is the founder of the SpaceKids Global science education nonprofit, which encourages children to learn about space, and Marc Hagle is a property developer. Litteral won his seat on the New Shepard as part of a giveaway, while Russell is founder of the Victoria Russell Foundation to support children’s education, and Wolfond is a fixed-wing aircraft pilot and helicopter pilot.
Blue Origin also shared the patch image for the flight. Here’s what it had to say about the patch:
“The color pink and the girl in the signature pink overalls represents Emily Calandrelli. The centerline in the “2” represents Sharon and Marc Hagle’s second flight on New Shepard. The stars represent Austin Litteral’s vision for people among the stars. The people at the bottom represents J.D. Russell’s hope for generations of people expanding their understanding of the world. The wolf in the crew capsule’s window represents Hank Wolfond.”
After 13 suborbital test flights and more than $15 billion in development costs, SpaceX's Starship has finally reached orbit. The 407-foot megarocket, the most powerful ever built, lifted off from Starbase, Texas, on Monday and delivered its first real payload on it's 14th attempt. The celebration came with an asterisk, though, since SpaceX had to cut the planned 10-hour mission to roughly three hours.
https://twitter.com/SpaceX/status/2104601695711904180
SpaceX is finally ready to give Starship its biggest test yet. The company says the massive rocket's 14th test flight is scheduled for September 22, when it will attempt to put the upper stage into Earth orbit for the first time. The launch is currently pending regulatory approval, with a 75-minute window opening at 7:15 a.m. CT.
Starship has 26 Starlink satellites to deliver
For decades, humanity has looked up at the Moon and wondered what it would be like to live on it. Think sprawling cities, factories, research centers, and permanent human settlements. Unfortunately, there is one fairly fundamental problem with that vision.
A new study published in Frontiers in Space Technologies argues that even the Moon's potentially enormous reserves of frozen water may be nowhere near enough to support city-sized populations sustainably. Researchers Martin Elvis and Jonathan McDowell estimate that the permanently shadowed regions near the lunar poles could contain roughly one billion tons of water. It sounds like an extraordinary amount until you put a million thirsty humans next to it.