Blue Origin Plans to Start Selling Suborbital Spaceflight Tickets Next Year

[Megalith]

An executive with Amazon founder Jeff Bezos’ rocket company has revealed that Blue Origin will offer tickets for commercial spaceflights in 2019. The plan to bring tourists into space is still in its early stages, however, as all New Shepard flights thus far have been unmanned. Pricing is also unknown.

“We continue to be head down on making sure the configuration is good and stable and ready to fly,” Bob Smith, chief executive of Blue Origin, said in an April interview on the status of New Shepard development. “Once we all feel confident that that’s the case, then we’ll have the conversation internally about what prices are and what that whole process looks like.”

 

[pcgeekesq]

all New Shepard flights thus far have been unmanned.

Q: When was the last time anyone went into space on an American-made rocket?
A: Almost seven years ago: July 8, 2011, on the last Space Shuttle mission (Atlantis). (Source)

Pathetic, isn't it?

Thanks, Obama.

 

[DeathFromBelow]

Thanks, Obama.

Every president from Reagan on knew the Shuttle was an expensive mess. They're all to blame for not replacing it, the Shuttle should have been retired and gone by the 90s. Reagan talked about the National Aero-space Plane, Bush talked about Jarvis, Bush Jr talked about Ares, and Obama talked about SLS, but in all fairness Obama was the only one to seriously fund a new rocket program over the course of his administration. Whether or not SLS ever flies is in Trump's tiny hands now.

 

[CombatChrisNC]

Ungh, SLS.

 

[DeathFromBelow]

Ungh, SLS.

It's what NASA asked for. The concept is largely similar to the DIRECT Jupiter launch family that NASA engineers proposed as a more realistic alternative to Ares during the Bush Jr administration and NASA arguably had the funding to do it. Turns out that whatever money could have been saved by retaining Shuttle-era hardware seems to have been wasted on mismanagement within NASA, though some would argue that the ISS program and investment in commercial launch services are what really ate the budget and talent.

NASA has their fingers in too many pies, we see the same thing when companies get too big and their core products start to suck. Unfortunately, NASA was made this way by design all the way back to president Johnson. If they don't throw money around to various states and programs they're at risk of getting the axe in Congress.

 

[CombatChrisNC]

Just finished reading some op-eds...

For the price we've paid for the SLS we could have purchased enough Falcon Heavy launches to build and maintain a moon base.

 

[dreamwriter]

Just finished reading some op-eds...

For the price we've paid for the SLS we could have purchased enough Falcon Heavy launches to build and maintain a moon base.

Flying into space on what kind if vehicle?

 

[pcgeekesq]

Every president from Reagan on knew the Shuttle was an expensive mess. They're all to blame for not replacing it.

True.

in all fairness Obama was the only one to seriously fund a new rocket program over the course of his administration. Whether or not SLS ever flies is in Trump's tiny hands now.

SLS is another expensive mess. The Space Access Society, Space Frontier Foundation and The Planetary Society all called for its cancellation. Obama sabotaged the space program, wasting billions on a rocket no one needs when that money could instead have been used to develop useful payloads for launching on Atlas, Delta, Falcon 9, and Falcon Heavy rockets.

 

[dreamwriter]

True.



SLS is another expensive mess. The Space Access Society, Space Frontier Foundation and The Planetary Society all called for its cancellation. Obama sabotaged the space program, wasting billions on a rocket no one needs when that money could instead have been used to develop useful payloads for launching on Atlas, Delta, Falcon 9, and Falcon Heavy rockets.

Every politician has used NASA as a political football.

 

[pcgeekesq]

Every politician has used NASA as a political football.

True. But our current President isn't much of a politician, is he?

 

[dreamwriter]

True. But our current President isn't much of a politician, is he?

Boy, is that a loaded question!

 

[katanaD]

i wonder how they will compete with virgin galactic once they start doing their sub orbital jaunts soon.

LOL.. would be awesome to suddenly have competition for a market that doesnt current exist

 

[dreamwriter]

i wonder how they will compete with virgin galactic once they start doing their sub orbital jaunts soon.

LOL.. would be awesome to suddenly have competition for a market that doesnt current exist

But what sort of vehicle are they going to use?

 

[dreamwriter]

But what sort of vehicle are they going to use?

As I mentioned, Outcast (a very unique game) was remade, whereas they should make a sequel. Fighting the Talen military is pretty exciting. Yves Grolet had an innovative approach to AI.

https://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2017-11-16-outcast-second-contact-review