The two men embraced. Into black ugliness. Is that death? Is that the way death is? Blue Origin has said that its ultimate goal, rather than shuttling wealthy people into space, is to advance technologies to more easily get the carbon-dioxide emissions that fuel climate change into space.
Still, Shatner gamely made the rounds of cable-news chat shows ahead of his flight. Shatner has had a long life in the public relations of space. In , the Russians put a dog Laika into orbit. Four years later, both countries set astronauts adrift in space, outside their capsules, and television networks green-lit sci-fi space shows. As a surprise, they created a model of the Enterprise and set it on a flight path outside the capsule window. The final episode aired in June, just a month before Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin landed on the lunar surface.
Our nonfictional galactic adventures were soon struggling, too. I'm Captain bloody Kirk and I'm terrified! Interview: William Shatner remembers 'Star Trek's cancellation as 'a low point in my life'. Along with Shatner, the spaceflight passengers in Blue Origin's second human spaceflight included Blue Origin's vice president of mission and flight operations Audrey Powers, a former NASA engineer and tech entrepreneur Chris Boshuizen and the founder of a clinical trials software company Glen de Vries.
Blue Origin was founded by Amazon founder Jeff Bezos in The company's only human spaceflight to date launched on July 20, when it flew Bezos, Bezos' brother Mark, Mercury 13 aviator Funk and year-old student Oliver Daemen son of a hedge fund manager to suborbital space. In a matter of minutes, the group blasted off from the West Texas desert, reaching space and returning to Earth in a smooth parachute landing.
This was 16th flight for New Shepard, the foot rocket designed primarily for space tourism, but the first to include people. Facebook Twitter Email. William Shatner goes to space aboard Blue Origin. Here's everything you need to know. I hope that I can maintain what I feel now.
Their trip did not go exactly as the interplanetary jaunts Shatner captained during his acting career. New Shepard's flight lasted just ten minutes from takeoff to landing, and gave the passengers about three minutes of weightlessness. Read More. The group strapped into a capsule that sits atop the foot-tall New Shepard rocket Wednesday morning after a series of wind-related delays.
At am central time, the rocket fired up its engines and roared past the speed of sound, vaulting the capsule up past the Karman Line, which, at 62 miles high, is one line used to demarcate the beginning of outer space. Shatner and his fellow passengers were expected to experience up to 5. Upon descent, a plume of parachutes then fanned out above the capsule to slow its descent, taking it from more than miles per hour to less than 20 in just a few minutes.
Shanter's new record as the oldest person to fly to space one-ups the record set just three months ago by year-old Wally Funk, who was a former astronaut trainee but was previously denied the opportunity to fly before she joined Bezos on his July flight. Shatner's flight marked the second of what Blue Origin hopes will be many space tourism launches, carrying wealthy customers and thrill seekers to the edge of space. It could be a line of business that helps to fund Blue Origin's other, more ambitious space projects, which include developing a foot-tall rocket powerful enough to blast satellites into orbit and a lunar lander.
The Blue Origin capsule, with Shatner inside, waits for recovery crews after landing in the Texas desert. But Shatner's flight comes amid a wave of headlines that paint a picture of internal turmoil at Blue Origin, including several exits from the among senior-level staff in the wake of the company losing a key NASA contract to Elon Musk's SpaceX.
A group of 21 current and former employees also co-signed an essay alleging that Blue Origin has a "dehumanizing" workplace environment that's rife with sexism.
It also claimed that the company has created an unsafe environment and many of the essay's authors "say they would not fly on a Blue Origin vehicle. Blue Origin did not respond to requests for comment about the safety allegations. But the company has repeatedly stated that safety is its top priority. Powers, the Blue Origin vice president who will be flying on Wednesday, also responded to the safety allegations in an interview with CNN's Erica Hill on Monday, saying the reports did not give her pause.
Is it safe? Blue Origin has conducted more than a dozen uncrewed test flights of New Shepard, and Bezos decided to put himself on the first-ever crewed flight in July, in part to demonstrate that he trusts his own life with Blue Origin's technology. Blue Origin has billed New Shepard as a spacecraft that virtually anyone can fly on with only a few days of light training. Though the vehicle will put the passengers through intense G-forces as it blasts upward and returns back toward Earth, the ride won't be nearly as intense as orbital flights like the one that SpaceX recently operated for four space tourists , which requires far faster speeds and a nail-biting reentry process.
Read more about suborbital vs. On Blue Origin's website, it states the following criteria for passengers:. You must be 18 years of age or older.
0コメント