On board was Laura Shepard Churchley, the first American daughter to have crossed the ultimate border in 1961.
Le Monde with AFP
The company Blue Origin of American billionaire Jeff Bezos has completed its third inhabited third mission, briefly taking away in the six-passenger space including Laura Shepard Churchley, the girl of the first American to have crossed, in 1961, the ultimate border. The rocket took off at 09:01 local Texas (16 h 01 hour from Paris) for this flight of 10 minutes and 13 seconds that allows its passengers to spend a few moments in space.
“We had a superb flight today,” Bob Smith welcomed the manager of this company created by the founder of Amazon and pioneer in spatial tourism. This is the first time that the New Shepard rocket capsule, namely referred to in the pioneer of Alan Shepard’s American space, operated at full capacity. The previous flights had so far counted only four passengers.
So also on board an American celebrity, the television presenter and former Professional American football player Michael Strahan, and four passengers who have paid for the trip: businessmen Dylan Taylor and Evan Dick, and a Father and his child, Lane and Cameron Bess, 23 years old. The ticket price is not known.
A full industry
The characteristic shape rocket takes off vertically and about 75 km altitude, the capsule separates from the launcher, pursuing his trajectory until you reach more than 100 km – the Karman line, which marks the beginning space according to the International Convention.
Passengers can come off from their seats, float a few moments by weightlessness, and admire the curvature of the earth through very large portholes. The launcher automatically returns to a track, while the capsule begins with a free fall to return to the ground, before being braked by parachutes, then retrofinated.
On their arrival on Earth, in the Texan desert, Laura Shepard Churchley and Michael Strahan have congratulated in a big burst of laughter, pioneers of a growing industry under the impulse of Jeff Bezos or his competitor Richard Branson, founder of Virgin Galactic. The two billionaires were present on board the inaugural flights of their respective gear last July. Virgin Galactic on the 11th of July had preceded Blue Origin of a few days on July 20th.
Tribute to Alan Shepard
Saturday’s flight wanted a new tribute to Alan Shepard who had done on May 5, 1961, a flight in the space of 15 minutes, 23 days after the historic flight of Soviet Yuri Gagarin, who was the first human in space. Alan Shepard is also the fifth of the twelve men to have trampled the lunar soil so far. He died in 1998.
“It’s pretty funny for me to say that an authentic Shepard will fly in a new shepard,” said Laura Shepard Churchley in a video of Blue Origin at the time of the announcement of the flight. “I am very proud of my father’s legacy,” she added.
Blue Origin warned that he had already planned several flights to space in 2022, on which places will be paid.