Blue Origin, the launch of Jeff Bezos’ New Shepard opens the era of space tourism

New Shepard’s first suborbital “tourist” flight, Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin “reusable” space flight system, ended in the best of ways. The crew on board, consisting of the Amazon owner himself, his brother Mark, 82-year-old Wally Funk and 18-year-old Oliver Daemen, were perfectly brought back to earth by the capsule that landed by deploying the three parachutes.

a 10 minute flight

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The New Shepard reached the altitude of about 106 km crossing the Kármán line which marks the boundary between the earth’s atmosphere and open space. Once reached this height, in which the crew was able to experience the condition of microgravity (the lack of weight that astronauts feel on board the International Space Station) for about three minutes, the pressurized capsule detached and made its back to earth. At the same time, the booster rocket also returned to the launch base.

Bezos’ satisfaction

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“It was the best day of my life,” commented Bezos as he stepped out of the capsule. And again: “Seeing the Earth from space changes you and changes your relationship with the planet and with humanity”.

Tourism for the rich

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Today is a historic date as it marks the beginning of space tourism, which remains an exclusive prerogative of the wealthy few who will be able to afford it. But not only that, because even NASA itself has set its sights on New Shepard, showing interest in the technology used. The Blue Origin space flight system is in fact composed of two vehicles (the capsule and the booster) that take off together and that were made to be reused. The New Shepard is then unmanned and is completely controlled by on-board computer, without ground control or human pilot.