Blue Origin: Jeff Bezos' Firm Debuts Video of Cushy Space Tourist Capsule
Those padded walls will help in low gravity.
by Scott SnowdenA full-scale replica of the Blue Origin crew capsule, the marshmallow-shaped object that will carry humans to the edge of space, was on display for public viewing for the very first time this week, and the interior looks cush.
The capsule debuted at Amazon’s new artificial intelligence-themed convention, called re:MARS (Machine learning, Automation, Robotics, and Space) that runs through Friday. While there’s no fixed date when humans will first fly onboard one of the rockets built by the company started by Jeff Bezos, testing continues unabated.
The experience will cost each passenger between $200,000 and $300,000, reported Reuters in July 2018, and the total flight time, from launch to landiing softly in the Texas dirt, thanks to parachutes.
Those padded walls will help in low gravity, no doubt, and in the crew capsule, all six people get a window seat. “You’ll listen to the countdown and then feel the engine ignite and rumble under you as you climb through the atmosphere,” reads a description from Blue Origin. The capsule is 530 cubic feet.
The first crewed Blue Origin flight will simply reach the edge of space — a landmark called the Kármán Line — and then return. This the company’s reusable suborbital flight system, will launch the crew capsule to its destination before it descends to Earth, landing softly in the Texas dirt, thanks to parachutes. Blue Origin is also working on a heavy-lift launch vehicle designed to reach Earth orbit, called New Glenn, but that’s unlikely to fly before 2020.
It's believed that the first crewed flight will reach the edge of space and then return, riding atop of a New Shepard rocket.
The video — seen above — was shot by an Amazon representative and sent to Inverse. There’s no denying, it looks remarkably comfortable.
Blue Origin has said that its human-rated rocket is still in the vertical processing facility in Texas, nicknamed “the barn,” where technicians are readying it for spaceflight.
The New Shepard is designed to accelerate to Mach 3, past the Karman Line into suborbital space, then return to Earth.
It stands approximately 60 feet (18 meters) tall and is designed to carry six passengers in a spacecraft, according to the company’s website. It’s designed to accelerate to three times the speed of sound (Mach 3), take passengers past the Karman Line into suborbital space, then return to Earth under parachutes and land gently in the West Texas desert.
