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from the Musk-will-beat-'em-both-to-orbit-and-to-Mars dept.
Blue Origin flight: Wally Funk, 82, to join Jeff Bezos space flight
An 82-year-old woman who has spent six decades trying to reach space will join Jeff Bezos on the first human flight by his space company later this month. Wally Funk, who underwent training in the 1960s, will become the oldest person to ever fly to space. Mr Bezos has invited Ms Funk as an "honoured guest" and shared video on Instagram of him telling her the news. She will join the Amazon founder, his brother Mark and a mystery person who paid $28m (£20m) at auction for a seat.
[...] Funk volunteered in 1961 for the Women in Space programme where she underwent rigorous physical and mental testing in the hope of becoming an astronaut. But the scheme was later abruptly cancelled and she and the other women - collectively known as the Mercury 13 - never made it to space with Nasa.
Game on—Sir Richard Branson will attempt to go to space on July 11
On Thursday afternoon, Virgin Galactic said its founder, British billionaire Sir Richard Branson, will attempt to go to space on July 11.
Dubbed the "Unity 22" mission, this flight on the VSS Unity spacecraft will carry a full crew of two pilots, Dave Mackay and Michael Masucci, and four mission specialists, including Branson. "Building on the success of the company's most recent spaceflight in May, Unity 22 will focus on cabin and customer experience objectives," the company said in a statement.
The timing of this flight is significant, because a July 11 mission would allow Branson to beat Amazon founder Jeff Bezos to space. Bezos has said he will fly on the first human flight of the New Shepard spacecraft, developed and tested by his Blue Origin rocket company. That mission is set for July 20.
Thursday had been a great day for Bezos and Blue Origin, as the company received plaudits from across the space industry for inviting Wally Funk to join Bezos on the New Shepard flight. Funk, 82, was member of the privately funded "Mercury 13" program for women who ultimately were not selected to go into space in the 1960s. She is seen as someone who really, really deserves to go to space.
But Virgin Galactic's announcement will upstage this moment for Bezos, as it furthers the "battle of the billionaires" to see who will go into space first.
Previously: Jeff Bezos Will Fly on Blue Origin's First Human Spaceflight
Branson May Make a Last-Ditch Effort to Beat Bezos Into Space
Blue Origin Auctions New Shepard Seat for $28 Million
(Score: 2) by turgid on Friday July 02 2021, @01:10PM (8 children)
Are there problems with the spacecraft?
I refuse to engage in a battle of wits with an unarmed opponent [wikipedia.org].
(Score: 4, Informative) by takyon on Friday July 02 2021, @01:17PM (2 children)
It has become popular to wish death upon the "space billionaires". I think Ars Technica cleaned up those comments on the linked story but you can find similar comments all over Twitter [twitter.com].
Launching Jeff Bezos into space is a leap too far for insurers [nbcnews.com]
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Friday July 02 2021, @09:24PM (1 child)
I don't much care if they survive their silly little games or not. If the survive - OK. If they die - that's OK too.
Meanwhile, neither of them is "going into space". Neither has launched a payload out toward Mars orbit, for example. Neither of them is going to the space station. Neither of them is going to accomplish anything. Phhhht.
If there's any real danger involved, there are a dozen or more billionaires I'd like to nominate to go along. Soros, Murdoch, Bloomberg, Gates, (most of) the Waltons, Koch, Dorsey - and if there's room, maybe Trump too.
“I have become friends with many school shooters” - Tampon Tim Walz
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday July 03 2021, @12:03AM
Branson's Virgin Orbit has actually launched satellites into LEO, so while Virgin Galactic is just a fancy carnival ride I can't begrudge it even if I've given up hope that it will ever actually reach orbit itself. He's actually doing something with his money, he isn't afraid to chase hard problems, win or lose, and he hasn't tried to outlaw the competition. Frankly, the world could do with a few more like him.
(Score: 3, Informative) by c0lo on Friday July 02 2021, @01:41PM (3 children)
Petition Do not allow Jeff Bezos to return to Earth [change.org]
Breaking news Jeff Bezos plans to use little grannies who can't afford their insulin and children with school lunch debt as an alternative source for rocket fuel. [change.org]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 2) by Opportunist on Friday July 02 2021, @04:00PM (2 children)
Sorry, but there is no way to keep him up there. The rocket doesn't have enough dV to reach escape velocity, whatever you do, the orbit will eventually decay and he will reenter.
Best you can do is omit the heat shield. Which would arguably increase the potential dV due to less mass...
(Score: 2) by Immerman on Friday July 02 2021, @04:23PM
You don't even need escape velocity (= enough to leave Earth's gravitational influence entirely), just orbital velocity.
For low orbit though, that's still about 10x the dV needed to reach altitude. And neither Blue Origin nor Virgin Galactic are even reaching minimum orbit altitude - you need at least 150km to complete even a single orbit, and almost twice that to maintain a modestly stable orbit for any length of time.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday July 03 2021, @12:18AM
New Shepard doesn't have a heat shield since it maxes out at mach 2.1. SpaceShipTwo reaches mach 3.4 and doesn't need a heat shield either.
(Score: 3, Touché) by Frosty Piss on Saturday July 03 2021, @03:34AM
Other than being a toy rocket developed by the King of Cheap Chinese Crap?