Updates Blue Origin New Shepard News and Updates

[TheShuttleExperience]

Would you claim that an EVA is easier at merely 100 km?

I think it depends on the speed. I don't really would like to experience frictional heating on my suit And if you are not orbital, it would be a very short EVA anyway.

Again: There must be a definition where space begins, or we don't have ANY spaceflight at all.

Yeah, I know. It's not easy, especially when we consider that even ISS and higher objects are still experiencing drag and actually fall back without reboost. So we also could easily exclude ISS and all that stuff

I just think that referring to LEO makes more sense since it provides sustainable powerless flight through space. New Shepard is in the atmosphere/below the Kármán line by 97% of its flight. It goes just 4km above for exactly 1 minute of its 10 minute trip (on its last flight). It just barely punctures the 100 km boundary.

 

[Thunder Chicken]

I am maybe too liberal there, but:

Astronaut = Operates a spacecraft in space.

What about mission and payload specialists?

Maybe astronaut = someone who works in space? But that definition might have to get further refined when orbiting hotels and casinos become a thing. Maybe like on ships, you have licensed crew (mates and engineers and able bodied seamen/wipers) and unlicensed crew (mess, housekeeping, etc). Maybe we need the rank of spaceman?

 

[TheShuttleExperience]

What about mission and payload specialists?

Maybe astronaut = someone who works in space? But that definition might have to get further refined when orbiting hotels and casinos become a thing. Maybe like on ships, you have licensed crew (mates and engineers and able bodied seamen/wipers) and unlicensed crew (mess, housekeeping, etc). Maybe we need the rank of spaceman?

I think astronaut includes payload or mission specialists - it's just a rank like pilot or commander.

I would say that an astronaut is a person that is trained and qualified to live and work in a complex spacecraft environment, travelling through space in an orbit or on a trajectory to another celestial body. Whereas people onboard New Shepard are participants in space flight. While paying passengers onboard ISS or Soyuz/Dragon also qualify as astronauts - they are just no scientists.

That would be similar to what NASA says: https://www.nasa.gov/humans-in-space/astronauts/

 

[Urwumpe]

What about mission and payload specialists?

In my definition, payload or mission specialists would only be astronauts, if they are part of the crew responsible for maintaining or operating the spacecraft as well as have at least some basic skills in flying it. Being able to activate the autopilot for an autonomous return home would be enough in my definition.

If they don't even have that and are only responsible for their experiments or mission tasks, I would say they are passengers or scientific crew, but no astronauts.

So, all past government astronauts would still fit perfectly, just like some first space tourists like Richard Garriot.

 

[Sbb1413]

I'm too late in this thread, but I see that three people of Indian origin have used New Shepard to go to space. A Pakistani citizen also flew to space using New Shepard, becoming the first Pakistani space traveller. Pardon me, but I don't understand how a Pakistani citizen can be rich enough to go to space, given the nation is currently suffering hardships.

 

[Urwumpe]

I'm too late in this thread, but I see that three people of Indian origin have used New Shepard to go to space. A Pakistani citizen also flew to space using New Shepard, becoming the first Pakistani space traveller. Pardon me, but I don't understand how a Pakistani person can be rich enough to go to space.

That answer is likely the same as the answer to: How can a Indian be rich enough? Or a US citizen?

And India has more than double the poverty rate as Pakistan.

https://data.worldbank.org/?locations=IN-PK-BD-LK

 

[GLS]

https://twitter.com/x/status/1842196161177833911

 

[GLS]

https://twitter.com/x/status/1842921769742827532

 

[GLS]

Live stream for the launch, about 3 hours from now:

 

[GLS]

.... and 3 hour delay

https://twitter.com/x/status/1843264841940975991

 

[GLS]

Live stream is up!
Lauch time moved up 10 minutes to the top of the hour.

https://twitter.com/x/status/1843310844324741166

 

[GLS]

...and delayed back to ~10 minutes after the hour due to an aircraft in the vicinity.

 

[GLS]

The new vehicle is called "RSS Karman Line".

 

[GLS]

Telemetry issue delaying this thing.... maybe this vehicle is speaking in hungarian and they don't undertand it...

 

[GLS]

Countdown resumed, T-3 minutes!

 

[GLS]

Another hold at T-77 seconds....

 

[Urwumpe]

Another hold at T-77 seconds....

Sounds more like a commercial break.

 

[GLS]

Sounds more like a commercial break.

Maybe Teddy is afraid of heights...

Seems like the commentators left, so this may take a while.

 

[Urwumpe]

Seems like the commentators left, so this may take a while.

Maybe their workday is over already.

 

[GLS]

Scrub