The launch vehicle with the RSS First Step module took off from West Texas, it was the second launch of the Blue Origin machine with a crew.
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Wednesday’s takeoff was first postponed by half an hour to 16:00 CEST due to strong winds, which led to delays in missile exports. Later there was another shift of the start to 16:30 and then for another minute.
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The New Shepard rocket, named after the fifth American astronaut on the moon, Alan Shepard, finally took off at 4:50 p.m.
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The crew of the second manned suborbital flight (NS-18) of the New Shepard rocket took off today at 16:50 CEST. On board are Chris Boshuizen (co-founder of Planet Labs), Glen de Vries (co-founder of Medidata), William Shatner (actor) and Audrey Powers (Blue Origin). pic.twitter.com/0BSJs6ZHux
– Michal Vaclavik (@Kosmo_Michal) October 13, 2021
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“The crew is ready and yesterday (Tuesday) completed all pre-flight training,” cosmonautics specialist Michal Václavík from the Czech Space Office and the Prague CTU informed on Twitter this morning.
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The crew of the second manned suborbital flight (ie it crosses the imaginary boundary of the Earth’s atmosphere but does not reach Earth’s orbit) with the New Shepard rocket together with Shatner consists of former NASA engineer Chris Boshuizen, co-founder of Medidata clinical research software Glen de Vries and Blue Origin Audrey Powers.
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According to Blue Origin, two of them paid for a rocket space at billionaire Jeff Bezos.
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Ten minutes
According to the plan, the flight lasted about 10 minutes, while the module with space tourists was to ascend to a height of 106 kilometers, ie above the so-called Kármán border at a height of 100 kilometers, which is a generally recognized border between the Earth’s atmosphere and space.
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Three minutes after the launch, the module with the crew detached from the launch vehicle and climbed itself to a height of 107.04 km. While the launch vehicle began to sink back, the four people in the cabin could enjoy a state of weightlessness for several minutes, respectively. microgravity.
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The rocket itself landed, and the manned module then landed safely on the ground in the Texas desert – about three kilometers from the launch site. All four had already come out of the capsule.
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The character of the captain of the starship USS Enterprise, James T. Kirk, has been played by Shatner in the original series since 1966 and later in several films. He last appeared in his most famous role in 1994. Now, in his 90s, he becomes the oldest man to ever take part in a space flight.
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William Shatner on a tour of the Blue Origin starter
Photo: Reuters
“I’ve heard something about the universe. I take the opportunity to see for myself. It’s a miracle, “Shatner said in a recent statement.
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| William Shatner is a Canadian actor, holder of a Golden Globe, Emmy or Saturn. His most famous role was Captain James T. Kirk, commander of the Enterprise in the sci-fi series Star Trek. He played this character for three years (1966-1969) in the series and simultaneously in seven feature films. Shatner has a star on both the Hollywood and Canadian Walk of Fame. |
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William Shatner in the Star Trek series
Photo: Profimedia.cz
Previous (and competitive) flights
Blue Origin chief Jeff Bezos himself took part in the debut flight of his rocket in July, which was also exceptional in that it suddenly broke the records of the oldest and youngest man in space. His brother Mark and 82-year-old aviation pioneer Wally Funk and 18-year-old Oliver Daemen flew with Bezos. Funk’s record is now to be surpassed by Shatner.
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The owner of rival Virgin Galactic, British billionaire Richard Branson, was nine days ahead of Bezose in the competition for nascent lucrative space travel. In July, he participated in the first flight of the corporate space shuttle VSS Unity to the edge of space with a complete six-member crew.
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According to Bezos, however, Branson did not reach space. Unity has climbed only over 80 km and this height is recognized as the limit of space “only four percent of the world”, said the boss of Blue Origin. From the point of view of the US military, the universe starts 80.4 km high, but the generally accepted limit of outer space is those 100 kilometers.
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However, unlike Branson’s manned space shuttle, the Bezos module is fully automated.
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In mid-September, the Falcon 9 rocket brought the Crew Dragon Resilience ship directly into orbit, another competitor, SpaceX billionaire and businessman Elon Musk, with four people. The fully automated Inspiration4 mission, a crewed crew formed for the first time in history by completely non-professional astronauts, lasted three days.
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The first completely amateur crew flew around the Earth without a professional astronaut. There were two men, Jared Isaacman and Christopher Sembroski, and two women, Sian Proctor and Hayley Arceneaux.
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But the mentioned Bezos can’t just rejoice. A recent letter from 21 former and current employees of his company Blue Origin sent to the US Federal Aviation Administration, which warns, among other things, about not solving problems in the development of missiles, is the last stone in the mosaic of current problems of the company.
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Although its New Shepard rocket flies to the borders of space, other projects – especially the development of rockets – are accompanied by considerable difficulties.
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Crew of the current suborbital flight
Photo: Profimedia.cz
