4653

Blue Origin’s New Shepard flights, including the one with Bezos on it, do go to space. They just cross the Karman line at 100 km up. It’s Virgin Galactic’s SpaceShipTwo flights (e.g. the one Richard Branson took) that don’t quite get there by the international Karman line definition, but do by the 50 mile definition used by some U.S. federal agencies (and some scientists due to the low level of atmosphere.)

These suborbital space flights are supposedly around $250k-500k per seat right now. From what I heard, Shatner was offered a spot on these flights (by both companies) but didn’t care to pay that much personally, I imagine since it’s just several minutes in weightlessness. However, there’s apparently a film company footing the bill to send him up. I would think Blue Origin would also give a discount for the PR, but no idea.

Also, the $55M number is for SpaceX taking a NASA astronaut to the space station (though does not include the time you spend there), a private free-flying flight is supposed to be somewhat cheaper since NASA always has a bunch of extra services they require in the contract. My guess is that the Inspiration4 flight (and upcoming similar ones) are well under $50M per seat, though private flights to the ISS will still be costly once you pay NASA for your stay. In any case you still have to be extremely wealthy or fortunate to go to orbit, but maybe only rich to go to space suborbitally.

4654

And then he could host his own 911-ca… oh wait…

4655

The real question, I think, is, does Shatner come back to Earth and tell everyone he saw a monster on the wing?

4656

I have to say that Shatner, looks and sounds great at 90. This was a fun interview.

4657

exactly

4658

Blue Origin doesn’t go fast enough to burn up on re-entry; their engines cut off at ~2,500 mph and they coast to maximum altitude where they have almost zero velocity. Orbital velocity is ~17,000 mph, that’s what burns you up.

4659

WaPo goes after Blue Orgins hard.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2021/10/11/blue-origin-jeff-bezos-delays-toxic-workplace/

Over the past several months, he {Jeff] has and is also spending more of his own money to help the company compete, several people confirmed. He has been deeply involved in the fight over the NASA lunar lander contract that SpaceX won, those people said.

“He’s super jealous of SpaceX,” one industry official, who spoke anonymously to discuss private matters, said. “He’s really worried about them. That is very clear.”

One of the former Blue Origin executives said that even though Blue Origin teamed up with Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman and Draper on the lunar lander contract, it was no surprise that the company lost.

“We can’t manage ourselves,” the person said. “Not one of our programs is on cost and schedule. Yet you think we’re going to manage Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman and Draper? It’s just not going to happen.”

The industry official said his advice for Bezos would be to “start over. You should be the CEO if you really want to do something, but you basically need a new executive team and a totally new culture.”

4660

I’m no Musk fan. But I like what SpaceX is doing.

4661

G2 level solar storm tonight and into tomorrow. If you’re in a northern enough latitude, there’s a chance of the aurora borealis showing up. I’ll keep my eyes peeled here in Montreal!

4662

Sums up my position perfectly. Musk doesn’t seem like a great person, but he undeniably knows how to run an engineering company. Maybe it’s just the magic of knowing when to hire smart people and get out of their way. Hard to say from the outside. But I am hesitant about discussing Musk or SpaceX on the internet because so many people have made it a binary issue. The bickering between the Musk-is-jesus and the Musk-is-satan camps is really wearying and tends to drown out any actual interesting discussion.

4663

The voyage of a million miles (through space) starts with only 1,500 (through one ocean, a canal, and another ocean). Go, Webb, go!

https://www.nasa.gov/press-release/nasa-s-webb-space-telescope-arrives-in-french-guiana-after-sea-voyage

4664

Yeah, my beef is with Musk as a public company CEO (and, somewhat, as a human being, but that side wouldn’t really matter if he weren’t so high profile). Tesla and especially SpaceX do impressive things, and that’s in no small part down to him, even if he oversells them at times, sometimes dangerously so. Solar City not so much and I think that was a very dodgy transaction.

4665

I’ve got a bad feeling about what’s going to happen on Blue Origin’s next flight…

4666

That is hilarious.

4667

So The Shat did NOT go Splat.

4668

Yet again I am dumbfounded by the waste of money for what is, from start to touchdown, a 10-minute ride. Don’t get me wrong: if you have the money, by all means, go and spend it on something like this if you want. But please, please don’t sell this as 'the future of spaceflight. Because I truly hope it isn’t…

4669

I’m glad but also a little sad that somebody didn’t get red-shirted.

4670

You actually get more weightless time from a vomit comet flight for a fraction of the cost. (Only about $7500 per flight.)

4671

Yeah, it’s not much of the future of spaceflight. It just gets a few more people involved until (if) the price comes down. The orbital space tourist flights are probably the start of the real future of spaceflight. It will stay fairly minimal though until private space station options are online and the prices come down a ways, hopefully both happening a bit this decade.

However, there is a little more beyond tourism and potential increased interest in spaceflight. There is some need for better/cheaper/available hands-on research options for both suborbital and orbital flights. I believe both Blue Origin and Virgin Galactic have already done some of this suborbitally, and of course the space station cargo+crew missions (from SpaceX and Northrup Grumman) have been doing this in conjunction with NASA for a while.

My impression is that there are pros and cons to using balloons, vomit comet-style airplane flights, and sounding rockets for suborbital space research, and that these new crewed-suborbital flights may provide an advantage over those options particularly if the price can come down at all.

4672

Well done, Captain.