Darren Lyn
31 March 2022•Update: 01 April 2022
HOUSTON, Texas
The fourth human commercial flight of Jeff Bezos’ space tourism company, Blue Origin, made a successful launch early Thursday in the west Texas desert after a series of weather-related delays.
The New Shepard spacecraft, named after the eldest daughter of pioneering astronaut Alan Shepard, blasted off from Blue Origin’s US headquarters located near Van Horn.
The suborbital joyride, which was live-streamed on Blue Origin’s website, lasted 10 minutes from liftoff to touchdown. The crew got to experience a few minutes of weightlessness at the apex, nearly 350,000 feet (106,680 meters) high, crossing the threshold of outer space before the capsule fell back to Earth for a parachute landing in the desert.
“It was intense,” said engineer Gary Lai, Blue Origin designer and architect of the New Shepard reusable launch system. “I felt like I was falling toward the ceiling. It was like being outside.”
Unlike the previous three-crew missions, there have been 20 other flights, there were no big-name celebrities on the spacecraft this time around.
In addition to Lai, there were five paying customers: investor Marty Allen, University of North Carolina business professor Jim Kitchen, Commercial Space Technologies president George Nield and real estate developer Marc Hagle and his wife Sharon.
“It was awesome, amazing,” said Nield, “It was just gorgeous.”
“I’m still stunned for words,” said Allen, “The weightlessness was great. It was unbelievable … it’s unreal, just unreal.”
The previous three Blue Origin flights boasted high-profile celebrities, including 90-year-old Star Trek actor William Shatner, Good Morning America co-host and former NFL star Michael Strahan and Bezos, who is also the founder of Amazon.
The cost for the five paying customers on this space joyride is unclear, as Blue Origin has not publicly disclosed the price.
Blue Origin’s direct competitor, Virgin Galactic, is currently selling seats for $450,000.
