Blue Origin space tourism

[thebard3]

I'm not really getting the point of the Blue Origin New Shephard tourism launches. Blue Origin launched 15 test flights before putting people on there, and around 16 more of which 11 were 'crewed' flights. I used 'crewed' intentionally as I don't think anybody does anything more useful than just floating around. It seems more like an amusement ride than anything more practical than that.

 

[IRstuff]

Public interest insures that funding and support continue for basic research and science.

Blue Origin has flown with people from countries that have not participated in space flight, so there's some possibility that those countries might be more interested in space flight going forward.

 

[thebard3]

That suggests an interesting scenario. Are tax dollars being used to supplment Katy Perry and other celebrities who are paying to ride into 'space'?

 

[LittleInch]

The real truth?

 

[btrueblood]

"Are tax dollars being used to supplment Katy Perry and other celebrities who are paying to ride into 'space'?"

I don't know, are they?

Virgin Space has been doing tourism launches as well. I doubt much in the way of tax dollars, other than FAA, and local and state taxes to maintain airspace, is involved in either enterprise (at least no more than in any other air- or space-related tourism based industry).

Certainly not to the level of NASA- and DOD-funded launches by SpaceX. But even there, a lot of funding is coming from private enterprise for commercial space launches, I'd venture that more than half of SpaceX revenues are private? Would be interested if you can come up with that data, but then, all 3 players are corporations and don't have the same reporting requirements as public agencies, so those numbers are likely buried.

 

[IRstuff]

Are tax dollars being used to supplment Katy Perry and other celebrities who are paying to ride into 'space'?

Not directly; Blue Origin has contracts for specific launch services, notably defense and intelligence payloads, so it's the same learning curve that also benefits the commercial side.

https://www.space.com/space-explora...aunch-contracts-to-spacex-ula-and-blue-origin

 

[thebard3]

Everything I see about the New Shephard indicates that it is sub-orbital, so fills a pretty limited market. The New Glenn heavy lift vehicle is a different system. I don't think SpaceX has anything like New Shephard.

 

[IRstuff]

I don't think SpaceX has anything like New Shephard.

Sure, they do, everything "needs" to be commercialized to make money. While not suborbital, it's still mostly, if not purely, commercial flight

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/polaris-dawn-sunday-splashdown-gulf-of-mexico/
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/spacex-crew-first-flight-around-earths-poles/

 

[WKTaylor]

Blue Origin 'New Sheppard' flights are manned suborbital... and since the PAX have NO crew function the FAA will no-longer award official astronaut wings... Blue Origin wings only.

Blue Origin is principally owned by Jeff Bezos... and New Sheppard is 100% private/commercial venture... paying PAX and/or payloads suborbital... and is great training for NASA, Blue Origin crews, and tourists/wanna-be astronauts. Blue Origin New Glenn is likely a private/USG partnership for heavy launch services.

Same-Same for Virgin Galactic [suborbital] and Virgin Orbit [payloads launch services], by Richard Branson

Hmmmmm. Bezos and Branson have both flown on their suborbital launch vehicles. I wonder if Musk will ever have the stomach/teste's to fly on Falcon/Dragon... or would he be medically disqualified???

 

[LiftDivergence]

The primary purpose of New Shepard is as a sort of demonstration / knowledge building endeavor for other programs, namely New Glenn.

The main cabin of the capsule is composite structure... there are a lot of composite structures on New Glenn that greatly benefited from the experience on NS. Same with things like their flight ops training, internal certification processes, continued airworthiness substantiation, engineering tools & methods, etc. Some of the sensors & instrumentation used on NG was even partially certified in payload missions on NG.

It takes a long time for a company to build internal knowledge and capability... a lot of what was learned on NS was directly applied to NG in terms of both methods, and talent.

Obviously NS is suborbital, but the whole idea is to practice or provide a staging ground for reusability with the goal of reducing the cost of space infrastructure. People forget that the first time a rocket passed the Karman line and was propulsively landed on Earth was NS. Of course, it was not an orbital flight.

I think the whole idea of paying customers is a way to make NS a viable business. It is almost exclusively privately funded... nobody wants to run a private venture without income for 20 years.

Yes, there is a lot of media attention when celebrities fly and a lot of the criticisms are valid. But it is frequently overlooked that there is real science being done on NS as well. Even the most recent flight included several tended payload experiments.