While SpaceX has been sucking the PR oxygen out of the now commercial launch industry, Blue Origin has also been making strides. Popular Mechanics had the story on its New Shepard rocket (named after Alan Shepard, the first man into space and a New Hampshire native).
Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos’s rocket company, Blue Origin, is slated to launch its reusable New Shepard launch vehicle from Launch Site One at the company’s Texas facility today. Liftoff is scheduled for 11:57 a.m. EST. The suborbital test should take New Shepard to the very edge of space, roughly 62 miles above Earth’s surface. Watch a live stream of the action right here:
Fifty years later, quite the improvement and advancement in rocketry and it all seems to be by private industry. Sure, these companies are standing on the work of NASA in getting Shepard into space in the 1960s, but I sit in wonderment as the next stage in space travel is happening before our eyes – and many are taking it pretty much for granted (HEY! It’s the 21st Century after all!).
Just neat to watch – and the advancement in the optics to see WELL what is happening is just amazing as well.
(H/T: Popular Mechanics)
