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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:
——————–
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.

Genesis cover

On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.

 
The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.


The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
 

"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News

9 comments

  • Doubting Thomas

    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.

  • Andi

    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.

  • Dean Hurt

    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.

  • Michael G. Gallagher

    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?

  • janyuary

    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.

  • Dick Eagleson

    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.

  • Edward

    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.

  • janyuary

    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.”

  • Edward

    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.

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