Early this morning, Blue Origin made history from its launch pad One in West Texas when it made the first manned flight of its New Shepard launcher. The crew consisted of four commercial astronauts: Blue Origin and Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, his brother Mark Bezos, space pioneer Wally Funk and the 18-year-old student from the Netherlands Oliver Daemon.
The flight was an important milestone for the company, for commercial aerospace and civil space. It was the culmination of years of development entering a new phase when Bezos announced his resignation as CEO of Amazon to take on a more practical role. The flight was also historic because it involved the oldest (Wally Funk, 82 years old) and youngest (Oliver Daemon, 18 years old) astronauts who have ever flown.
The flight began at 8:12 a.m. CST (6:12 a.m. PST; 9:12 a.m. EST) and saw the New Shepard take off from the company’s facility in Van Horn, Texas. At 8:15 a.m., mission control reported the successful separation of the RSS First Step capsule from the first stage booster, which returned to the launch site shortly afterwards. A minute later, the capsule reached its 100 km climax – the Kármán Line – where the crew experienced four minutes of weightlessness.
Screenshot from Blue Origin’s live feed of their first human flight showing Wally Funk coming out of the capsule.
At 8:22 a.m., about a minute after the parachutes deployed, the capsule made a soft landing and slowed the capsule’s descent to a gentle 26 km / h (16 mph). At 9:45 am, the post-flight press conference (which was also streamed live on Blue Origin’s website) began showing the crew sharing their experience, receiving their commercial astronaut pins, and showing off some of the memorabilia they had taken with them them into space.
While every member of the crew had inspiring words to share, it was Wally Funk’s infectious, energetic manner that really tore the crowd. Funk was a very special guest on the flight as he was a member of the Mercury 13 – aka. the First Lady Astronauts Trainees (FLATs) program – 1960/61. Like her classmates, Funk went through the same medical tests and training as her male counterparts who would later become the Mercury Seven.
Funk was at the top of her class, outperforming the male astronauts in every category, but was never able to go into space due to the nature of the astronaut selection (which excluded women due to their lack of military training). When asked what the experience was like, she got up with a scream and enthusiastically conveyed the meaning of it all:
“I’ve waited a long time to finally get up there and I’ve done a lot of astronaut training all over the world – Russia, America – and I was always able to tell the guys what they were doing. Because I got stronger and always did everything by myself, and … I didn’t make dolls! I’ve been doing things outside. And I’ve flown planes and have 19,000 – a few hourly totals [flying time].
“I loved it and I love being here with all of you and your family. The four of us, we had a great time. It was wonderful. I want to go again quickly! And then, when I got off the ship, they gave me the end of one of the balloons and I’ll cherish that forever. “
Flight instructor Wally Funk poses in front of a USAF fighter. Photo credit: NASA
Bezos was sure to introduce a number of very special guests who attended the launch, including his own mother and Laura and Julie Shepard. Her father, the famous astronaut Alan Shepard (who died in his home in California in 1998) was the first American astronaut to fly into space in 1963 and is the namesake of the spacecraft that Bezos and his colleagues today flew into space:
“Alan Shepard was an Apollo moonwalker and has a gigantic list of accomplishments. But for our purposes today, the most interesting thing about Alan Shepard is that he’s the namesake for this vehicle, New Shepard, and that’s because the mission profile we created today is very similar to the one Alan flew when he was became the first American in space … We are very honored to have you here and thank you for coming to us, it is unbelievable. “
Like Branson, Bezos also used the post-flight press conference to announce a new philanthropic initiative called the Courage and Civility Award. This award recognizes “leaders who aim high and bravely pursue solutions, who always do so with courtesy,” said Bezos, awarding $ 100 million to recipients so that they can donate that money to charities and nonprofits of their choice.
The first two winners named at the conference are José Andrés and Van Jones. Anders, a world-renowned chef, is also the founder of World Central Kitchen, which mobilizes volunteer chefs in disaster areas to prepare hot meals for those in need. Van Jones is the famous political commentator, writer, attorney, and founder of several nonprofit organizations dedicated to reforming the criminal justice system and who also helped draft the First Step Act (FSA).
Photo of the crew at the post-flight press conference (left to right): Oliver Daemen, Mark Bezos, Jeff Bezos, Wally Funk and the Director of Astronaut Sales, Ariane Cornell. Photo credit: Blue Origin
Perhaps the biggest takeaway from the post-flight press conference (at least for those involved in the commercial space sector) was Bezos’ clues as to what was to come. In recent years, Blue Origin has lost ground to competitors like SpaceX and Virgin Galactic, who have managed to successfully conduct launch tests and secure lucrative government contracts.
In his decision to step down as CEO of Amazon to focus on Blue Origin and other projects, Bezos has indicated that he wants to make Blue Origin not only competitive but also lucrative. The question of what comes next arose in the context of Blue Origin’s development architecture, which includes the development of Vertical Takeoff and Landing (VTOL) vehicles, the liquid hydrogen-powered BE-3 engine, and related technologies.
In response, Bezos addressed how today’s test paves the way for future flights on the company’s other proposed launch vehicles:
“The architecture and technology we have chosen is completely exaggerated for suborbital tourism missions. We chose the vertical landing architecture based on scale. It’s architecture that can get very big, so we want to get experience with architectures that can get big, after New Glenn and one day New Armstrong. So, if you got the idea from the start that you want to build big, an architecture can be chosen as the whole point is to get practice. And other types of architectures do not scale in the same way if they are very large. “
Artist’s impression of the New Glenn rocket. Photo credit: Blue Origin
Like the New Shepard, the New Glenn and New Armstrong are aptly named after famous astronauts who achieved similar mission profiles. The New Glenn, named after the first American astronaut to orbit the earth (John Glenn), this 2-stage rocket will bring payloads and crew into Low Earth Orbit (LEO). The New Armstrong, named after the first man on the moon, will be the heavy-duty launch system used to send payloads and astronauts onto the lunar surface.
The New Glenn will rely on seven BE-4 engines to power the first stage booster, which are based on liquefied natural gas (LNG) and liquid oxygen (LOX). The second stage is based on a single two re-ignitable B-3E liquid hydrogen and LOX engines (a variant of the engine that powers the New Shepard). While technical specifications are not yet available for the New Armstrong, Bezos has stated that it will be the company’s most powerful ascension vehicle to date.
Be sure to check out the video of the post-flight press conference courtesy of Blue Origin!
Further reading: Blue Origin
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