[ad_1]
They crossed the Carmen Line, which marks the internationally recognized boundary of space.
On Tuesday, Jeff Bezos, the world’s richest man, and three crew members took his space adventure Blue Origin’s New Shepard launch vehicle soaring over the Texas desert and returning safely to Earth. This is a historic Asia. Orbital flight helps to create a new era of tourism in private commercial space.
The spacecraft ignited its BE-3 engine and launched from the Blue Origin launch site, which is located about 32 kilometers outside the rural town of Van Horn, flying about 107 kilometers above the surface of the earth. On a cool morning, the sky was generally clear at the time of launch, with a few mottled clouds.
The 57-year-old American billionaire flew for about 10 minutes and 20 seconds after the British Richard Branson boarded his competing space travel company Virgin Galactic successfully made its first suborbital flight from New Mexico for nine days. Reach the edge of space.
The new Shepard is designed to rush to altitudes above the so-called Carmen Line at speeds of more than 3,540 kilometers per hour, which is set by the international aviation agency to define the boundary between the Earth’s atmosphere and space.
After the space capsule is separated from the booster, the crew will unlock the weightless state for a few minutes. Then, the space capsule returned to Earth under a parachute, using a last-minute reverse thrust system to expel the “air pillow” for a soft landing in the Texas desert.
After landing on the desert ground, Bezos gave a thumbs up from the capsule, then walked out, wearing a cowboy hat and blue flight suit, and high-five with company employees.
The mission is part of a fierce competition between Bezos’ Blue Origin and billionaire Richard Branson’s Virgin Galactic to develop a potentially lucrative space tourism market. UBS estimates that, Ten years later, it will be worth $3 billion per year.
Bezos and other passengers climbed into an SUV, drove a short drive to the launch pad, then walked up to the tower and boarded a gleaming white spacecraft with blue feathers on the side. Before boarding the spaceship of the spacecraft, each passenger will ring a shining bell.
Branson entered space first, but Bezos was originally going to fly higher-the blue origin is 100 kilometers, and Virgin Galactic is 86 kilometers-experts say this is the first time in the world composed of all civilians. Man pilots space flight. It represents the first manned space flight of Blue Origin.
Bezos, founder of e-commerce company Amazon.com Inc, and his brother, private equity executive Mark Bezos, and two others joined. The 82-year-old pioneer female pilot, Wally Fink, and the 18-year-old Oliver Damien, who just graduated from high school, became the oldest and youngest people in space.
After landing, Bezos embraced Funk.
This flight coincided with the anniversary of the Americans Neil Armstrong and Edwin “Buzz” Aldrin on July 20, 1969, becoming the first human beings to walk on the moon. New Shepard is named after Alan Shepard, who became the first American to enter space in 1961.
Fink is a member of the so-called Mercury Group 13 women who were trained as NASA astronauts in the early 1960s, but were ignored because of their gender. Daemen is the first paying customer of Blue Origin and will study physics and innovation management in the Netherlands. His father was the head of the investment management company Somerset Capital Partners, and he watched his son fly into space at the scene.
Members of the Bezos family and Blue Origin employees witnessed the launch, and several spectators gathered by the highway before dawn. During the flight, the audience applauded.
New Shepard is a 60-foot-tall, fully autonomous rocket and capsule combination that cannot be piloted from inside the spacecraft. It is completely controlled by a computer, and there are no Blue Origin astronauts or well-trained personnel.
Virgin Galactic uses a space plane with two pilots on board.
The reusable Blue Origin booster has flown to space twice before.
Elon Musk, another billionaire technology tycoon, plans to send an all-civilian crew to his Crew Dragon capsule for a several-day orbital mission in September.
On Twitter, Musk wished the Blue Origin crew “good luck” hours before launch.
Blue Origin’s goal is to achieve the first of two other passenger flights this year in September or October this year.
The company seems to have a large number of future customers. More than 6,000 people from at least 143 countries/regions participated in the auction and became the first paying customers. The auction winner with a bid of $28 million withdrew from Tuesday’s flight, opening the way for Daemen. Virgin Galactic said that 600 people have made reservations, and the price of each ticket is approximately US$250,000.
Branson has stated that his ultimate goal is to reduce the price to around $40,000 per seat.
According to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, Bezos’ net worth is US$206 billion. He resigned as CEO of Amazon this month, but remains its executive chairman.
[ad_2]
Source link