Yesterday,
November 23, Amazon founder and CEO Jeff Bezos' Blue Origin did
sometime that no other privately held space company has been able to
accomplish. They were able to bring
their New Shepard rocket back to Earth
after traveling into outer space. This means that now they will be
able to re-use the New Shepard rocket to reduce the cost of future
flights.
“Now
safely tucked away at our launch site in West Texas is the rarest of
beasts -- a used rocket,” Bezos said in a statement. "Full
reuse is a game changer, and we can’t wait to fuel up and fly
again.”
This
is not the first time that Blue Origin attempted to bring their
rocket back to Earth. The first time was in April of this year when
they launched
their New Shepard craft into space. After
that flight they were able to bring the capsule back safely but where
unable to bring the rocket down due to a hydraulic problems. After
the failure the engineer re-designed the hydraulic system.
Jeff
Bezos' dream for Blue Origin is for the company to eventually carry
tourist in orbit of the Earth. With the success of this test the
company is one step closer to accomplishing that goal. There will
probably be more test flights to come before the company is finally
ready for those tourist flights.
“It
is, however, important to clear up the difference between "space"
and "orbit", as described well by
https://what-if.xkcd.com/58/
,” SpaceX CEO Elon Musk wrote in a tweet. In an earlier tweet Mr.
Musk did also congratulate Mr. Bezos on his accomplishment, “Congrats
to Jeff Bezos and the BO team for achieving VTOL on their booster”.
Eventually,
the New Shepard spacecraft will be able to carry six tourist into a
sub-orbit around the Earth. With this goal in mind the New Shepard
capsule is made
with extra large windows that are equipped with multiple layers of a
fracture-tough transparent material that will allow 92% of the
visible light shine through.
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