Photo: Blue Origin
After a very exciting 2021, the new year started somewhat quietly for Jeff Bezos’ space company Blue Origin. For the first three months of 2022, the company has been completely quiet, and we were even beginning to wonder when flights will finally begin.
This week, however, Blue Origin announced the date and crew of its fourth crewed mission to the edge of space. On Wednesday, March 23, the New Shepard spacecraft will take off from Launch Site One in West Texas, carrying with it a crew of six people, all of them on their first trip to space.
The most prominent figure of the mission (called NS-20) must be Pete Davidson of Saturday Night Live fame. His participation in the flight has been rumored for a while now and confirmed by Blue Origin on Monday.
The rest of the roster comprises angel investor Marty Allen, SpaceKids Global founder Sharon Hagle and her husband, Tricor International CEO Marc Hagle, explorer Jim Kitchen, and Commercial Space Technologies president, Dr. George Nield.
Blue Origin did not detail the mission profile, but we all know already how it’s going to go. The New Shepard rocket will lift off, take the passengers to an altitude of about 63 miles (roughly 100 km), then head back to the surface for a soft landing.
The entire experience does not last significantly more than ten minutes, making the whole thing something of a very short trip into the history books, but not quite into astronaut books for the people involved.
The cost of a ticket to space over at Blue Origin is not public knowledge. For reference, Virgin Galactic is charging $450,000 for a similar experience in terms of duration, and the first seat on the New Shepard was auctioned by Blue Origin for $28 million.
Ironically, the man who paid the huge amount for the alleged first seat, Grenada Ambassador to the WTO Justin Sun, did not get to fly yet, and 14 people (next week’s crew not included) already beat him to it.
UPDATE: Pete Davidson will no longer fly on NS-20, mission pushed to to March 29. Details here.
The most prominent figure of the mission (called NS-20) must be Pete Davidson of Saturday Night Live fame. His participation in the flight has been rumored for a while now and confirmed by Blue Origin on Monday.
The rest of the roster comprises angel investor Marty Allen, SpaceKids Global founder Sharon Hagle and her husband, Tricor International CEO Marc Hagle, explorer Jim Kitchen, and Commercial Space Technologies president, Dr. George Nield.
Blue Origin did not detail the mission profile, but we all know already how it’s going to go. The New Shepard rocket will lift off, take the passengers to an altitude of about 63 miles (roughly 100 km), then head back to the surface for a soft landing.
The entire experience does not last significantly more than ten minutes, making the whole thing something of a very short trip into the history books, but not quite into astronaut books for the people involved.
The cost of a ticket to space over at Blue Origin is not public knowledge. For reference, Virgin Galactic is charging $450,000 for a similar experience in terms of duration, and the first seat on the New Shepard was auctioned by Blue Origin for $28 million.
Ironically, the man who paid the huge amount for the alleged first seat, Grenada Ambassador to the WTO Justin Sun, did not get to fly yet, and 14 people (next week’s crew not included) already beat him to it.
UPDATE: Pete Davidson will no longer fly on NS-20, mission pushed to to March 29. Details here.
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