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[2021-07-20 14:41:25 UTC] UPDATE: Flight had a short hold at (IIRC) T-15:00 then proceeded to have a safe ignition, liftoff, flight, and separation. Booster landed successfully under powered descent. A few minutes later the capsule coasted to apogee (maximum altitude), began its descent, deployed parachutes, and landed nominally. All crew disembarked safely. Congratulations to all involved!]
According to Wikipedia, the capsule reached apogee of 105.671 km (65.6612 mi). On board were the oldest (Wally Funk, 82) and youngest (Oliver Daemen, 18) people to ever reach space. Also on board were Blue Origin owner Jeff Bezos and his brother Mark Bezos.
Original story follows, unchanged.
Blue Origin set for historic first human flight of its New Shepard system:
Officials with the rocket company Blue Origin said they remain on track for their first human spaceflight on Tuesday, which will carry founder Jeff Bezos and three other passengers on a suborbital hop 100 km above West Texas.
Steve Lanias, the lead flight director for the mission, said during a call with reporters that engineers completed a "Flight Readiness Review" for the launch over the weekend and found the New Shepard rocket and capsule to be in perfect condition. Weather, too, looks reasonable with any early morning storms expected to pass before the anticipated liftoff time of 8 am CT (13:00 UTC).
Bezos and the other three passengers—his brother, Mark, aviation pioneer Wally Funk, and a paying customer from the Netherlands named Oliver Daemen—underwent about 14 hours of training this weekend across two days. Their flight will be entirely autonomous. After launch the capsule will separate from the rocket, and the passengers will have about three minutes of weightlessness before they must strap back into their seats for the return to Earth. Upon reentry to Earth's atmosphere the passengers will experience about 5 Gs as gravity exerts itself on the returning vehicle.
[...] For Tuesday's flight, the company will provide a webcast, which is expected to begin about 90 minutes before the anticipated liftoff time. So the webcast should go live at 6:30 am local time in Texas, or about 11:30 UTC.
The webcast is scheduled to be available on YouTube: New Shepard First Human Flight.
NB: Virgin Galactic's flight on 2021-05-11[*] reached an altitude of 50 miles (80 km) which is the altitude at which NASA issues pilot's wings. Many noted the flight failed to reach the Kármán line boundary between Earth's atmosphere and outer space which is defined to be 100 km (62 miles). New Shepard's flight is scheduled to reach the Kármán line.
[*] SoylentNews coverage of Virgin Galactic's flight.
(Score: 2) by pdfernhout on Wednesday July 21 2021, @02:08AM (5 children)
(me from 2005) https://science.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=172243&cid=14342064 [slashdot.org]
"So, as I see it, launch costs are not a bottleneck. So while lowering launch costs may be useful, by itself it ultimately has no value without someplace to live in space. And all the innovative studies on space settlement say that space colonies will not be built from materials launched from earth, but rather will be built mainly from materials found in space.
So, what is a bottleneck is that we do not know how to make that seed self-replicating factory, or have plans for what it should create once it is landed on the moon or on a near-earth asteroid. We don't have (to use Bucky Fuller's terminology) a Comprehensive Anticipatory Design Science ... that lets us make sense of all the various manufacturing knowledge which is woven throughout our complex economy (and in practice, despite patents, is essentially horded and hidden and made proprietary whenever possible) in order to synthesize it to build elegant and flexible infrastructure for sustaining human life in style in space (or on Earth).
So that is why I think billionaires like Jeff Bezos spending money on CATS [Cheap Access to Space] is a tragedy -- they should IMHO be spending their money on DOGS instead (Design of Great Settlements). ..."
The biggest challenge of the 21st century: the irony of technologies of abundance used by scarcity-minded people.
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Wednesday July 21 2021, @08:58PM (4 children)
I would say that if you can't get to space affordably, you're never going to develop anything in or for space.
Affordable access seems the prerequisite to everything else.
IMO, you can't have DOGS without first having CATS.
The lower I set my standards the more accomplishments I have.
(Score: 2) by pdfernhout on Saturday July 24 2021, @03:15PM (3 children)
Sorry I obviously was not clear enough, as you missed the point I was making. Launch costs are not the bottleneck for millions of people to travel to space. Living with style in space is the bottleneck because there is (almost) nothing to do in space right now other than a bit of tourism. It is like saying we need to reduce costs to travel to travel to Antarctica without thinking about what people would do once they go there. The reason millions of people don't live in Antarctica right now (a far more hospitable place than space in many ways given air and water) has little to do with travel costs and everything to do with lack of technical know how or vision of living there. If it only cost you $1000 to travel to the Moon or Mars or L5, why would you want to move to space right now any more than moving to Antarctica for $1000 (roughly the actual cost one-way)? That is why Bezos, Branson, and Musk all have suboptimal investment priorities if they want to help humanity expand beyond Earth's surface. It would be better instead to invest in understanding how to make things.
I posted more about this the other day on the green site: https://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=19368431&cid=61603087 [slashdot.org]
"And as I point out on the OSCOMAK website and elsewhere, and as Bucky Fuller and others have said before me, this sort of technological understanding of Design Science could make the Earth a happier place. It does not have to be "either/or" -- it can be "both". For example, automated greenhouses can help people on Earth and in Space. Wastewater filtering can help on Earth and in Space. 3D printing can help on Earth and in Space. Knowing how to produce electricity from photovoltaic materials can help both on Earth and in Space. Knowing how to design products for cradle-to-cradle production can help both on Earth and in Space. Knowing how to sequence DNA and treat viral infections or cancer can help on Earth and in Space. Understanding "Crew Resource Management" can help on Earth and in Space. And so on. And we have so much knowledge already. But we have not organized it well in part due to the point in my sig -- people using abundance (e.g. computers) from a scarcity perspective (e.g. excessively long copyrights and excessively broad patents, R&D money waste on "me too" similar products or reinventing the wheel, academics refusing to share knowledge and source code funded by public dollars, etc.). We could have built a tower to the stars with all we know and can do already -- but instead we struggle to get anything cooperative done amidst a babel of legal mumbo jumbo where people (e.g. Aaron Swartz) can face more jail time for sharing information than for murder. Still, progress is made -- but it is much slower than it could be if someone like Jeff Bezos had invested in organizing information instead of building another rocketship. But it may be hard to see that when he made so much money related to selling copyrighted books using a proprietary private logistics system. Like Upton Sinclair said in 1934: "It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends upon his not understanding it!""
The biggest challenge of the 21st century: the irony of technologies of abundance used by scarcity-minded people.
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Monday July 26 2021, @03:06PM (2 children)
I maintain that there is some merit to the notion that if you don't have cheap access to space / Antarctica, you're not going to develop a thriving population or colony there.
The thriving population or colony depends on the ability to ship lots of freight and construction materials. Otherwise, you don't have a place for people to do any of the activities they would do once they get there. If they can't get their (affordably) then you'll never do anything there other than flags and footprints. Or a tiny, like 3 person, colony.
Without cheap access and transportation of freight, you won't have any hotels, McDonalds, or tourists in Antarctica or space. If everything must be flown in using a specialized aircraft / spacecraft maintained just for that purpose, don't expect tourism to happen. IMO.
The lower I set my standards the more accomplishments I have.
(Score: 2) by pdfernhout on Tuesday July 27 2021, @01:18AM (1 child)
"Living off the land" in space is the hope (and was the reality for people moving to the Americas or Australia overall). Every kilogram shipped to space beyond people is a design failure or a policy failure. For a start on how to live off the land in space, see:
http://www.islandone.org/MMSG/aasm/ [islandone.org]
"What follows is a portion of the final report of a NASA summer study, conducted in 1980 by request of newly-elected President Jimmy Carter at a cost of 11.7 million dollars. The result of the study was a realistic proposal for a self-replicating automated lunar factory system, capable of exponentially increasing productive capacity and, in the long run, exploration of the entire galaxy within a reasonable timeframe. Unfortunately, the proposal was quietly declined with barely a ripple in the press. What was once concievable with 1980's technology is now even more practical today. Even if you're just skimming through this document, the potential of this proposed system is undeniable. Please enjoy. ..."
See especially "Figure 5.41. - Flowsheet and process equations for the HF acid-leach process":
http://www.islandone.org/MMSG/aasm/AASM5E.html#f541 [islandone.org]
Or if you prefer a biotech approach, consider:
https://www.technologyreview.com/1999/09/01/236570/revolutionary-visions/ [technologyreview.com]
"By the late 21st or early 22nd centuries, Dyson speculates, biotech products such as warmblooded plants that grow their own greenhouses will enable humanity to create Earth-like environments on other worlds, beginning a vast migration to Mars, the asteroids, or the comets of the Kuiper Belt beyond Neptune."
More stuff: https://duckduckgo.com/?q=living+off+the+land+in+space [duckduckgo.com]
"Living Off the Land in Space: Green Roads to the Cosmos 2007th Edition
by Gregory L. Matloff (Author), Les Johnson (Author), C. Bangs (Author) "
https://www.amazon.com/Living-Off-Land-Space-Cosmos/dp/0387360549 [amazon.com]
"Pioneering Space Requires Living Off the Land in the Solar System"
https://www.nasa.gov/feature/pioneering-space-requires-living-off-the-land-in-the-solar-system/ [nasa.gov]
"As NASA continues preparing for the Journey to Mars, the technology now in development is expanding beyond the spacecraft and propulsion systems needed to get there. NASA scientists and engineers also are developing systems to harness abundant resources available in the solar system to support these pioneering missions. The practice is called in-situ resource utilization, or ISRU. Like early European settlers coming to America, planetary pioneers will not be able to take everything they need, so many supplies will need to be gathered and made on site. The concept focuses on how to turn a planetary body’s atmosphere and dusty soils into everything from building materials for shelters on Mars to rocket fuel for the trip back to Earth. Much of this work is taking place at NASA’s [Kennedy] Space Center in Florida. Center Director Bob Cabana recently explained that the agency is moving to a new era in space travel. ..."
Obviously there is a middle ground. If it is cheaper to go in space, then yes, there may be some more interest in living off the land in space. And if you can live off the land in space, then there will be motivation to reduce launch costs. Still, if I had to chose one or the other, a better "Bucky Fuller" Comprehensive Anticipatory Design Science to live off the land in space or in the oceans or in the deserts or in Antarctica or even in New York City is the one of the two which is the better choice as there is more widespread benefit. For example, the increasing knowledge on how to make cheaper and more efficient solar panels or better batteries benefits both Earthlings and Spacers. Automated greenhouses help both Earthlings and Spacers. Better 3D printing helps both Earthlings and spaces. Improved medical understanding like regarding nutrition and health helps both Earthlings and Spacers. Improved techniques for conflict resolution and decision making like via Dialogue Mapping using IBIS help both Earthlings and Spacers. And so on. Some technologies may be more dual use than others perhaps. But in any case, the more we understand how to make things and how to live in healthy ways, the easier it will be to build sustainable habitats for people (and other creatures) to live in anywhere in the cosmos.
The biggest challenge of the 21st century: the irony of technologies of abundance used by scarcity-minded people.
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Tuesday July 27 2021, @03:50PM
We have to live off the land in space.
At first, we need to be able to get there, bring freight there, and have a long supply chain, for a while.
Living off the land is the end goal. Not the first thing that can be done.
The lower I set my standards the more accomplishments I have.