Blue Origin resumes manned suborbital New Shepard flights

Scroll down to read this post.

I am now in the final week of my July fund-raising campaign for Behind the Black, celebrating its 14th anniversary. Thank you all, from the people who have donated small amounts to those who have given large sums. I cannot truly express how much your support means to me.

The support of my readers through the years has given me the freedom and ability to analyze objectively the ongoing renaissance in space, as well as the cultural changes -- for good or ill -- that are happening across America. Four years ago, just before the 2020 election I wrote that Joe Biden's mental health was suspect. Only in the past two weeks has the mainstream media decided to recognize that basic fact.

Fourteen years ago I wrote that SLS and Orion were a bad ideas, a waste of money, would be years behind schedule, and better replaced by commercial private enterprise. Even today NASA and Congress refuses to recognize this reality.

In 2020 when the world panicked over COVID I wrote that the panic was unnecessary, that the virus was apparently simply a variation of the flu, that masks were not simply pointless but if worn incorrectly were a health threat, that the lockdowns were a disaster and did nothing to stop the spread of COVID. Only in the past year have some of our so-called experts in the health field have begun to recognize these facts.

Your help allows me to do this kind of intelligent analysis. I take no advertising or sponsors, so my reporting isn't influenced by donations by established space or drug companies. Instead, I rely entirely on donations and subscriptions from my readers, which gives me the freedom to write what I think, unencumbered by outside influences.

Please consider supporting my work here at Behind the Black.

You can support me either by giving a one-time contribution or a regular subscription. There are five ways of doing so:

1. Zelle: This is the only internet method that charges no fees. All you have to do is use the Zelle link at your internet bank and give my name and email address (zimmerman at nasw dot org). What you donate is what I get.

2. Patreon: Go to my website there and pick one of five monthly subscription amounts, or by making a one-time donation.

3. A Paypal Donation:

5. Donate by check, payable to Robert Zimmerman and mailed to

Behind The Black
c/o Robert Zimmerman
P.O.Box 1262
Cortaro, AZ 85652

You can also support me by buying one of my books, as noted in the boxes interspersed throughout the webpage or shown in the menu above. And if you buy the books through the ebookit links, I get a larger cut and I get it sooner.

May 20, 2024 9:09 am Robert Zimmerman

Blue Origin yesterday flew its first suborbital New Shepard flight since a failure during an unmanned flight in 2022, flying six passengers on a short ten-minute jump.

This suborbital flight got a lot of press yesterday and today, but I consider these suborbital tourist flights somewhat old news. Had they occurred two decades ago, in the 2000s as promised, they could have helped trigger the commercial space industry. Instead, both Blue Origin and Virgin Galactic took another two decades to get started, and by that time orbital tourist flights were taking place.

There might be money to be made in suborbital hops like this, but the future of space exploration lies elsewhere.

As for Blue Origin, this flight confirms that the company has fixed the nozzle issues that caused the September 2022 launch failure. During ascent just after launch the spacecraft’s abort system activated, sending the New Shepard capsule free from the first stage booster, which subsequently crashed. The capsule landed safely with parachutes.

The investigation then stretched out over more than two years. It remains unclear why it took so long, though the FAA’s regulatory burden appears to have been one factor, with Blue Origin’s own sluggish pace of operations another.

3 comments

Ray Van Dune

May 20, 2024 at 9:58 am

Perhaps significantly, perhaps not, the capsule landed with one of its parachutes only partially deployed.
pzatchok

May 20, 2024 at 10:04 am

It is nice that they are still doing these promotional flights annually.
Edward

May 21, 2024 at 2:12 pm

Robert wrote: “Had they occurred two decades ago, in the 2000s as promised, they could have helped trigger the commercial space industry. Instead, both Blue Origin and Virgin Galactic took another two decades to get started, and by that time orbital tourist flights were taking place.”

The delay also encouraged the skeptics of commercial manned flight. If suborbital was this difficult, then orbital was unlikely. Boeing’s Starliner would have been the proof positive, except that SpaceX’s manned Dragon had been so successful.

In addition, had Blue Origin or Virgin Galactic started revenue service a decade earlier, they would have made millions of dollars over that timeline, and would be in full operation today. They continue to find customers, because the alternative is still out of the price range of most individuals.

Orbital flights on Dragon are likely to continue being flights for experimenters, because they are just too expensive for popular tourism. Robert called them “tourist flights,” but every one of them, so far, have performed experiments and testing, either on board or on the ISS. Privately-funded science is making a comeback.

As Starship comes online, reducing the per-person cost of spaceflight, New Shepard and SpaceShipOne will eventually become second-rate rides rather than the highly desired trips into space that they are today. Especially if Starship starts city-to-city service, as some people expect.

Blue Origin resumes manned suborbital New Shepard flights

3 comments

Leave a Reply