On Thursday, Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin successfully completed a flight test on the updated New Shepard. The crew capsule received a mix of safety and comfort-related updates for its 14th flight (nicknamed “NS-14”), which lasted about 10 minutes. NBC News reports that the spacecraft could fly with a full crew as early as April.
Major Tom to ground control – The NS-14 added communication capabilities to each of the six seats on the capsule, which were also new, including a space-warned crew alert system equivalent to an airline security video. Passengers in each seat can also communicate with Mission Control, thanks to microphones and push-to-talk buttons.
Cooling and humidity control systems have also been introduced to prevent fogging of windows and to remove carbon dioxide from the interior. A little bit of sound insulation also suppressed some of the ambient noise in the capsule. Finally, it is intended to be a fun experience, after all, the booster rotated 2 to 3 degrees per second during the ascent to provide 360 ° views of those windows now without fog.
Sources said NBC News that the NS-15 test flight is scheduled to take place in six weeks, with a crewed flight taking place six weeks later (or approximately in early April). Blue Origin has a high goal of sending people into space on a regular six-week schedule.
Billionaires in space – While Elon Musk’s SpaceX definitely took the lead in the billion-dollar space race, Bezos and Richard Branson of Virgin Orbit are moving forward with their own plans. Virgin Orbit has literally been struggling to take off, but its most recent release rescheduled for January 17 could put its place back in the booming industry.
Like his billionaire peers curious about space, Bezos has his own ideas for space travel, preferring that the great unknown turn into a landfill for the waste of the Earth. The introduction of private space travel at a relatively early stage in the process allows a handful of elites to potentially influence the way we treat the rest of the solar system. But hey, the booster spins, so that’s cool.