Space Tourism may be much closer to than I have previously thought:
Jeff Bezos, founder of Amazon.com has tested his space tourism rocket. The company he put together is called Blue Origin. The rocket shown here (Credit: Blue Origins) is named Goddard, it’s the first development vehicle in the New Shepard program.
Now I have to admit when I first looked at this I was thinking “where’s the rest of it”.
That's funny. I had the same reaction...
It turns out this does fly, and fly it did on November 13, 2006 when it went up 285 feet and then back down in a controlled landing. When I watched this video, of the flight, it took a couple of looks to be sure the landing wasn’t just just the launch played in reverse — it wasn’t.
You can go to the Blue Origins launch page and watch a number of videos, none of which should be terribly taxing on dial-ups, it will take a few minutes though. Here is my favorite video of the lot.
Here's a video of the test flight:
I have no idea how well this will eventually work, but the fact that they've even come this far shows great promise. Who knows -- maybe space tourism will be affordable to the common man during my lifetime? How incredible would that be?
Read more about Blue Origin in today's New York Times.
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