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Space

Wally Funk And Three Crewmates Travel To Space And Back In Under 15 Minutes (npr.org) 150

NPR: Wearing a cowboy hat under the West Texas morning sun, Jeff Bezos crossed the bridge to enter the capsule made by his company Blue Origin. He was accompanied by three others -- his brother Mark Bezos, female aviation pioneer Wally Funk and 18-year-old Oliver Daemen. Then the shuttle hatch closed and just before 9:15 a.m. ET, the four blasted into space on the first human flight on Blue Origin's New Shepard launch vehicle. Bezos is the second billionaire this month to reach the edge of space: Richard Branson rocketed there last week aboard a vessel made by his company Virgin Galactic. The date of the New Shepard's maiden launch is no accident: July 20 was the day in 1969 that Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin landed on the moon. Further reading: 'Mercury 13' pilot Wally Funk carried 60 years of history to space on Blue Origin flight.
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Wally Funk And Three Crewmates Travel To Space And Back In Under 15 Minutes

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  • New glenn can now earn some money for BO, but the only way to make real money is to be orbital with a reusable system.
    In addition, they need to have multiple private space stations up there for training, etc and more importantly, competition.
  • by mykepredko ( 40154 ) on Tuesday July 20, 2021 @09:11AM (#61600687) Homepage

    It appeared to be a flawless flight (with the exception of the hold at 15 minutes).

    Personally, I found the Blue Origin commentary to be somewhat grating and I am highly skeptical of the prediction that they're going to get thousands of people taking the trip.

    Overall nicely done!

    • by pr0t0 ( 216378 ) on Tuesday July 20, 2021 @09:22AM (#61600737)

      Agreed. The commentary was amateurish and seemingly uneducated. I kept asking, "Where did they find this person?" the whole time.

      I also felt the dialogue from the capsule to the crew underscored a lack of respect for what can still go fatally wrong in such an endeavor. Celebrate and enjoy the moment, yes, but give the crew the information they need quickly and clearly to ensure your safety.

      • by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

        Was there anything they could do? I got the impression it was on autopilot and they couldn't fly it themselves.

        Kinda lame joyride really, no orbit like the USSR managed 60 years ago.

    • 1. oldest & youngest astronaut on the same ride.
      2. sixty two years is a damn long time to wait for a flight.
      • by Ol Olsoc ( 1175323 ) on Tuesday July 20, 2021 @10:07AM (#61600899)

        1. oldest & youngest astronaut on the same ride. 2. sixty two years is a damn long time to wait for a flight.

        There are plenty of Astronauts who never have and will never go to space.

        I am super excited and happy that Wally Funk got to take a ride to space. You go girl! That must have been some moment when she was told of the offer. I'm a little disappointed that it's being hailed for the reasons it is being hailed.

        • I am super excited and happy that Wally Funk got to take a ride to space. You go girl! That must have been some moment when she was told of the offer.

          No doubt. She's been trying to go to space for her entire, long, life, and worked her butt off to make it possible. But, they didn't let women fly when she was young, and by the time women were flying she was too old to qualify as a shuttle pilot. It's fantastic that she was finally able to realize her dream, even if only briefly.

          Makes me a little misty-eyed, no exaggeration.

      • by Applehu Akbar ( 2968043 ) on Tuesday July 20, 2021 @11:54AM (#61601351)

        sixty two years is a damn long time to wait for a flight.

        Pffft! I've waited for United delays.

      • by jwhyche ( 6192 )

        2. sixty two years is a damn long time to wait for a flight.

        Said the person who probably never got bumped to standby on U.S. Scare.

  • Comment removed (Score:5, Interesting)

    by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Tuesday July 20, 2021 @09:16AM (#61600709)
    Comment removed based on user account deletion
    • You should look at this more as the means to the end, and that would be, logistics and transportation.

      The competition between these companies, and many others that will pop up, will enable cheaper traveling of people... and goods.
      It will be ironic that billionaires and alike will actually help society, indirectly though, by financing the costs of developing this technology cheaper for large-scale when it has been society, up to a point, the one paying most of the price for the wealth of these people. An
      • Not really ironic (Score:5, Insightful)

        by SuperKendall ( 25149 ) on Tuesday July 20, 2021 @09:49AM (#61600831)

        It will be ironic that billionaires and alike will actually help society, indirectly though, by financing the costs of developing this technology cheaper

        But this is how progress mostly works, through all of human history...

        For example, Standard Oil started by selling kerosine like many other companies. But you know how they grew to become massive? Because making kerosine left a ton of unwanted (at the time) petroleum as a byproduct, and the guy who ran Standard Oil saved all of it instead of throwing it away, then started figuring out what could be made from it - inventing Vaseline, among other things, and refining gasoline when cars came around. All because he had the foresight not to get rid of what others considered waste.

        Throughout history rich people and companies have often used a lot of that capital to expand into new products and do things that have not been done before...

        So remember that everyone, before you seek to take down the rich people and companies with massive taxes. What sort of future innovation will you be destroying to pay some federal worker that produces nothing?

      • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

        by DarkOx ( 621550 )

        It will be ironic that billionaires and alike will actually help society, indirectly

        Umm not this is pretty much exactly how capitalism, free persuit of happiness are supposed to result in.

    • Re:PR (Score:5, Insightful)

      by pr0t0 ( 216378 ) on Tuesday July 20, 2021 @09:40AM (#61600787)

      I have a like/dislike feeling about Musk, and I really don't want to take anything away from the teams at BO or VG who have done serious work and amazing output, but I will say this:

      Virgin Galactic - For our first manned flight, we sent people to an altitude of ~85km
      Blue Origin - For our first manned flight, we sent people to an altitude of ~106km
      SpaceX - For our first manned flight, we sent people to an altitude of ~408km. We also docked and undocked with the ISS autonomously. We also spent 64 days in orbit. We also made it through atmospheric reentry. We also did a lot science. We even created new space suits. We also did all that over a year before you guys did your thing.

      • Comment removed based on user account deletion
        • Re:PR (Score:5, Insightful)

          by CrimsonAvenger ( 580665 ) on Tuesday July 20, 2021 @09:58AM (#61600869)

          But why Blue Origin, which seemed to be a SpaceX competitor, went for a Virgin-like demo I'm not sure.

          IMHO, they were trying to do something as quickly as possible in order to get a piece of the Artemis Program. They really want a piece of that government money for future development....

      • Comment removed (Score:4, Insightful)

        by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Tuesday July 20, 2021 @10:24AM (#61600973)
        Comment removed based on user account deletion
        • Re:PR (Score:4, Insightful)

          by SvnLyrBrto ( 62138 ) on Tuesday July 20, 2021 @01:49PM (#61601825)

          Regular air travel started out... back in the "barnstormer" days... as frivolous entertainment by and for people who had money to burn. Hell, within living memory if you were programming computers you either worked for the government... most likely breaking Russian codes or building bombs and missiles with which to nuke them... or you were a rich (or tenured faculty) dilettante fooling around with absurdly expensive and inaccessible (For any normal middle-class person.) kit.

          Right now, civilian space travel is where the Curtis Jenny and Xerox Alto were in computing; and the government is operating Douglas C-47s and DEC PDP-11s. But eventually all that gave way to the Cessna 172 and Apple ][. And now we have 787s and AWS. But you don't get to the everyday mass-market without early adopters willing to take chances and pay through the nose.

        • I'm curious. Two questions:

          1) Do you people expect random street bums to advance access to space for public- and private-sector applications?

          2) If not, have you contacted your legislators to advocate increased government spending on this?

          Because otherwise, those Evil Capitalist Billionaires are the only ones moving us forward. It's unfortunate that the best/only way you can help is to STFU and get out of the way, but it's also absolutely true.

    • "We need to do something to get the public to focus on how space is the future and we're revolutionizing the industry!"

      "I know, let's send some billionaires into space on an expensive joy ride, at least one of whom is wildly unpopular right now because of unaddressed issues about how his employees are treated!"

      I really think both this and the Branson trip were bad ideas. I can't stand Elon Musk with a passion but I'm glad he has the sense to let SpaceX do its spacering with regular, paid, astronauts (for manned flights) and actual utilitarian missions. Then again, Musk has always understood marketing and PR better than the others.

      All I can say is that in the late 1950's, there was a country that were way beyond the USA's spacefaring abilities, putting satellites into orbit, while we were practicing blowing up rockets a few feet off the launchpad. They had a number of firsts, and the USA looked lamer with each kaboom failure, and Russia's continued success.

      It didn't end up that way in the end though, did it?

      So yes, Ol Muskie is further along, parts of his work being standard Rocketry, but the Starship work is looking surprising

    • At least with Branson people want to like him, because of the hair.

    • by k6mfw ( 1182893 )
      NASAWatch has various comments, many that criticize Branson and Bezos are replied from others who say back in the early days of aviation, it was the same thing of rich people doing the first passenger flights. Not sure if we can say the same these days, back then standard of living was increasing (took a dump in the 30s but huge rebound 20 years later). But these days standard of living is decreasing particularly during last year when wealthy people had huge increase in net wealth while commoners had a decr
    • "I know, let's send some billionaires into space on an expensive joy ride, at least one of whom is wildly unpopular right now because of unaddressed issues about how his employees are treated!"

      I really think both this and the Branson trip were bad ideas. I can't stand Elon Musk with a passion

      Ummm, I am unsure if you are aware of this or not ... and its cool if you are not ... but you sound kind of like a hater. Hating is not all bad; wait, yes it is. But I would never accuse you of it. I am merely saying that you SOUND like one.

  • by theshowmecanuck ( 703852 ) on Tuesday July 20, 2021 @09:20AM (#61600731) Journal

    Not everyone in the remote, desert town of Van Horn was excited about the drama unfolding 40 kilometres to the north.

    "It's a luxury that's going to be set aside for the wealthy," [www.cbc.ca] said pizza shop owner Jesus Ramirez. He planned to watch the morning launch from his restaurant's patio with a cup of coffee.

    But I'm pleased Wally Funk was included. At least a little class was shown.

    • It's true, some things do cost a lot of money, and are thus available only to the wealthy. Things that are new do tend to be expensive. That initial design and testing process costs a lot. The first cars were out of reach by any but the wealthy. Cruise control, turbocharged engines, and intermittent wipers used to be only on upscale cars. Over time, these things tend to come down in price. Space travel may never be cheap, but it may become attainable for a much larger number of people. Even if right now, sp

  • by forty-2 ( 145915 ) on Tuesday July 20, 2021 @09:29AM (#61600757)

    I feel like Bezos brought Wally Funk along for Karmic good-will of sorts... Like we can't all hope for the rocket carrying Lil' Lex Luthor to explode on launch if it's also got her aboard...
    Jokes aside, I'm glad an amazing woman got this well-earned experience, and that this story is bringing another lesser known pioneer of space & science to light.

  • If there is no pilot then it is just a toy.
  • Everyone pointing out this is just a playtoy for the uber-wealthy is correct but it doesn't really have to stay that way. If this platform, which has taken them years and years to develop is as mature as one would expect it to be they should have a few more rockets and capsules next year. Maybe by 2023 there are a dozen or so of these, with a 3-4x a week launch cadence. That should drop the ticket price from the millions into the hundreds if not tens of thousands at that point.

    Falcon 9 is up to 9 or 10 f

    • by Rhipf ( 525263 )

      I think a "a 3-4x a week launch cadence" is a lot further away than 2023.
      Would I bet heavily against it? Probably not but I would be willing to put a few dollars down that this time frame is a bit unrealistic.

    • by zlives ( 2009072 )

      What is the carbon footprint per person per trip for this carnival ride?

      • by Megane ( 129182 )
        Well, it burns hydrogen, but the cheapest and most common way to get hydrogen is steam reforming, [wikipedia.org] which cracks methane into hydrogen and carbon dioxide, with some carbon monoxide from incomplete reaction, and other stuff from impurities in the methane. So it's more than they would admit to.
      • by dryeo ( 100693 )

        The better question is how much water vapor are they putting into a part of the atmosphere that usually contains close to zero water vapor. Remembering that water vapor is a way more potential greenhouse gas then CO2.

    • When it comes to scaling up and/or making it closer to something practical, Virgin actually has the edge.

      The Virgin configuration could take off from a regular airport. I'm not sure what the FAA would have to say about landing a glider at a regular airport; but if they could carry just enough fuel for a couple go-arounds then maybe they could land at a regular airport. Now if you can stretch that suborbital flight across the continent, then you've got yourself a hypersonic transport that takes off and land

      • That's actually a pretty interesting idea.

        My thought on BO scaling it up is even with the parachutes and capsule it's simpler than the VG vehicles. Probably simpler to build, no second aircraft, pilotless. I figure once they have the design it may not be that expensive relatively to build say 5-10 more.

        I have no idea what the financials are for either vehicle, if they can keep getting 7 figures a ticket they may not care about more ships.

  • billionaire and their new mega buck thrill ride. So did Jeff really get to space? Or is this flight like the other billionaire, who was that? the one that flew really high?
    • by Rhipf ( 525263 )

      So did Jeff really get to space?

      It all depends on who you ask. Technically, it is an international agreement that space starts at 100km from earth (the Karman Line) but astronomers and others would probably disagree with this limit and say that space is a lot further out from earth than that.

      P.S. for NASA and the US military the limit is only 50km from earth and anyone going beyond this point is considered an astronaut.

      • P.S. for NASA and the US military the limit is only 50km from earth and anyone going beyond this point is considered an astronaut.

        50 miles, not 50 km.

        • by Rhipf ( 525263 )

          Sorry you are correct. I was looking at the NASA site and forgot to convert the miles into kilometers. OOPS. 8^(

    • OK I he did get in to space. "capsule reached an altitude of about 66 miles, more than 10 miles higher than Virgin founder Richard Bransonâ(TM)s July 11 ride."
  • Sending Wally Funk to space was the best thing about this flight. I couldn't care less about another billionaire flying on his toy rocket.

  • not a shuttle (Score:4, Informative)

    by pahles ( 701275 ) on Tuesday July 20, 2021 @09:53AM (#61600843)

    Then the shuttle hatch closed

    It's a capsule, not a shuttle.

  • Congrats to the submitter for fixing NPR's title in ./

  • by jmcbain ( 1233044 ) on Tuesday July 20, 2021 @10:16AM (#61600943)
    A strong case can be made for Jeff Bezos being the greatest human ever. He reinvented the retail industry and the online cloud services industry. His company employees 100K+ people. He teaches people through his interviews and shareholder newsletters. He donates a lot of money to charity. Certainly AMZN stock has made a lot of money for shareholders, and I count myself among them. Bezos is like a modern day Alexander the Great. It's amazing what a CS degree, incredible focus, and being in the right place at the right time can do.
    • His company employees 100K+ people.

      That company is putting many more than that out of business, laying waste to the retail landscape both brick-and-mortar and online. It's reducing consumer choice, doing end runs around consumer protection by commingling inventory, it's sabotaging the one recourse we have against that(customer reviews) and enjoying all sorts of advantages from its absurd size. It treats its employees badly. Bezos is more like Gengis Khan.

      • That company is putting many more than that out of business, laying waste to the retail landscape both brick-and-mortar and online.

        Amazon hasn't put any other company out of business. It's the consumers who have done that. Amazon isn't holding a gun to consumers and saying "buy from Amazon or else." No, consumers have been free to buy from where they want during the 20+ years that Amazon online shopping has existed. Other stores had could sold goods online before Amazon came into existence, and they could done so after Amazon came into existence. Consumers have spoken with their wallets, and Amazon has been winning. It's really that si

    • Uah. I just threw up reading your post. I hope you're being sarcastic about a guy who destroyed book stores, is doing his best to destroy the shopping industry in an effort to create the world's biggest retail monopoly, takes zero responsibility for the products he sells on his store, engages in modern day slavery causing many of the 100K+ people in his employ to piss into bottles to avoid taking bathroom breaks which would affect their work performance and see them penalised.

      The rest of your post is a love

    • Bezos is like a modern day Alexander the Great.

      A murderer who inspired thousands of later wannabe leaders to also be murderers?

      If it weren't for Alexander, then Napoleon would have happily established democracy in France. Instead, he decided to conquer Europe, like Alexander.

  • Half an Armstrong (Score:2, Interesting)

    by whitroth ( 9367 )

    The first Mercury Astronaut, Armstrong, went up about twice as high in the US's first launch.

    • The first Mercury Astronaut, Armstrong, went up about twice as high in the US's first launch.

      As well as piloting the first suborbital flight, he single handed killed Ho Chi Minh in a sword duel and cured cancer while perfecting the fusion reactor.

      This must be true, I got it from the same book that said he was the first Mercury Astronaut, unanimously selected by the UN Security Council.

      Buckaroo Bonzai has nothing on him.

      • As well as piloting the first suborbital flight, he single handed killed Ho Chi Minh in a sword duel and cured cancer while perfecting the fusion reactor.

        It's all true. Then afterwards he returned home to his wife, Morgan Fairchild, whom he's seen naked.

  • Wearing a cowboy hat under the West Texas morning sun, Jeff Bezos crossed the bridge to enter the capsule made by his company Blue Origin.

    What do cowboy hats and hemorrhoids have in common?

    Sooner or later every asshole gets one.

  • Cause the real story here was not Bezos, but Wally Funk finally getter her chance. And NAILING it!! She was a joy to see and hear; can't wait for the onboard videos.
  • Amazon app (Score:5, Funny)

    by Harold Halloway ( 1047486 ) on Tuesday July 20, 2021 @12:14PM (#61601429)
    Although the spacecraft has landed, the Amazon app is still showing it as six stops away.
  • Scheduling Conflicts (Score:4, Interesting)

    by quantaman ( 517394 ) on Tuesday July 20, 2021 @12:33PM (#61601495)

    I still find myself wondering about the person who spent $28 million on a ticket then didn't go due to "scheduling conflicts".

    Like did they get reservations at an ultra-exclusive restaurant? Didn't realize it conflicted with their hair cut appointment?

    Maybe they weren't really paying attention when they bought the ticket and "scheduling conflicts" is just their blanket excuse when ditching a commitment they don't want to do.

  • Just think about the cost of the 15 minute ride, it's not worth the money to me. At least the Virgin Galactic flight took 59 minutes. A 15 minute ride to the edge of space for $200k and a brief 4 minutes where you can get up ad float about the cabin ? It's nuts. For a private company to achieve what only a few countries could achieve, that's remarkable. But calling the passengers Astronauts is a slap in the face for all the Astronauts out there who worked hard most of their life to get certified for s
  • Inside his penis-shaped spaceship.

  • I hope Jeff took a piss bottle with him.

    k.

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