Live stream of New Shepard flight: Successful flight
UPDATE: The flight has completed successfully, with the capsule reaching a height of about 66 miles, or about 107 kilometers. The booster was doing its first flight, with the capsule doing its eighth flight.
Original post:
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Capitalism in space: I have embedded the live stream of today’s New Shepard suborbital flight by Blue Origin. The countdown is just under T-19 as I write this.
Watch if you want, though you will have deal with Blue Origin’s pr, including their somewhat noxious anchor, who spends much of her narration telling us how wonderful and breath-taking and amazing everything is, no matter what happens.
Readers!
Please consider supporting my work here at Behind the Black. Your support allows 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. 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. Only now does it appear that Washington might finally 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.
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UPDATE: The flight has completed successfully, with the capsule reaching a height of about 66 miles, or about 107 kilometers. The booster was doing its first flight, with the capsule doing its eighth flight.
Original post:
——————–
Capitalism in space: I have embedded the live stream of today’s New Shepard suborbital flight by Blue Origin. The countdown is just under T-19 as I write this.
Watch if you want, though you will have deal with Blue Origin’s pr, including their somewhat noxious anchor, who spends much of her narration telling us how wonderful and breath-taking and amazing everything is, no matter what happens.
Readers!
Please consider supporting my work here at Behind the Black. Your support allows 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. 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. Only now does it appear that Washington might finally 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.
You can support me either by giving a one-time contribution or a regular subscription. There are four 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 or subscription:
4. 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.
I’m glad that observation about narration was made. Turned sound down during streaming – brought up during infomercials and after lift off turned down again. Narration drove me crazy. Not much info in narration just super,duper,amazing,incredible exclamations.
Interesting that they lit the engines at T-0 and held it on the pad for about seven seconds, presumably to let the thrust build up, whereas IIRC with the Apollo launches, they lit at about T-6 so that at T-0 they could let it go.
Nice to see Blue Origin back in the flying business, now that Jeff Besos can take time off from doing all he can to kick Trump out of office! They need to pick up their game on if they want to remain relevant in the face of the successes of SpaceX. NASA is so lame. They take decades to do what Musk and Besos have done, but it ends up horribly over cost and fraught with failure and danger.
I keep thinking that in a few years Musk might be using Starships to take 50-100 people on one or two-day orbital jaunts. At that point, Virgin Galactic and Blue Origin will be viewed as quaint flops. They’ll be like the many failed aircraft that litter the early history of aviation.
Anybody up for Maitais and Pina Coladas out of a squeeze tube?
Dean: “They take decades to do what Musk and Besos have done, but it ends up horribly over cost and fraught with failure and danger.”
NASA wants to recapture its glory days and is looking to recreate the past. As the only direction in time what we can go is forward, naturally they stall and fail, so focused are they on past glory.
Musk and Besos may learn from past mistakes the way all thoughtful humans do, but their entire focus is on the future, the only direction in time that we can go.
Gallagher,
I keep thinking that too. And after getting that part of the orbital space tourism business on a solid footing, comes the next step – a really big rotating LEO space station/resort.
janyuary wrote: “NASA wants to recapture its glory days and is looking to recreate the past.”
Actually, NASA is taking direction from Congress, in building SLS and Orion. Constellation was directed by the Bush administration. NASA’s contribution is in attempting to find something to do with them. About four years ago, NASA called for suggestions for science probes to launch on SLS, but I have not heard of any serious suggestions. Even Europa clipper is/was at Congress’s direction, not the science community. Because the asteroid mission of the Obama administration found no enthusiasm from scientists, the Trump administration suggested a return to the Moon, putting the first woman there as the major goal. Gateway is an idea from NASA, but Congress has not been enthusiastic enough to fund it or to fund putting a woman on the Moon, so as far as Congress is concerned, SLS has only one thing to do, and that is Europa Clipper.
Such lack of imagination or direction is another good reason for private space to choose what to do in space, decide how to do it, and to pay for it themselves. They are much more likely to do things that are so useful that people, companies, universities, or governments would pay for them.
I’m beginning to think that New Glenn has a chance of launching before SLS does.
Edward: …the Trump administration suggested a return to the Moon, putting the first woman there as the major goal…
And all sensible women and men see through it for the pandering to emotion that it is.
Looking to the past, looking to placate feminists that Trump stupidly calls “progressives.”
janyuary,
I think you got the gist of the enthusiasm that America has had for NASA’s manned space program for the past decade. Trump failed to find a way to raise enthusiasm. I’m pretty sure that Biden will not do any better, especially since he is most likely to reinforce the belief that NASA is used for political ends, as he changes its mission, yet again.
*Sigh*
“… that Trump stupidly calls ‘progressives.’”
Wearing vagina hats failed to make them look intelligent. Instead it emphasized one aspect of women, suggesting that the rest (including brains) was not important to the hat wearers. This was the impression that those particular feminists made just at the beginning of the Trump administration.