The NS-22 mission marked the 12th piloted commercial, non-government sub-orbital spaceflight and the sixth for Blue Origin, which is the early leader in a high-stakes competition between Jeff Bezos and Richard Branson, the billionaire owner of Virgin Galactic. "Some of that is transaction fees, but the figure suggests that a seat on New Shepard costs $1.25 million." "Thanks to the transparency of the blockchain, we know it cost MoonDAO $2,575,000," Quartz reported. The second seat has not yet been assigned. But Quartz reported MoonDAO, a "decentralized autonomous organization" built on the ethereum blockchain, paid $2,575,000 for two New Shepard seats, including Cotton's. And what's better than to be able to say you went to space when your buddies can't?"īlue Origin does not discuss how much it charges for a flight aboard the New Shepard. I have always been a bit of a braggart-slash-showoff. "And with stupid money, you can do stupid things. "With the sale of the company came lots of stupid money," Young told the Florida Today newspaper. The New Shepard Flight 22 crew (left to right): Sara Sabry, the first Egyptian to reach space, restauranteur Steve Young, "Dude Perfect" co-founder Coby Cotton, mountaineer Vanessa O'Brien, engineer Clint Kelly III and Mario Ferreira, the first native of Portugal to make a space flight. This is just the beginning."Īlso on board: Coby Cotton, one of five co-founders of " Dude Perfect," one of the internet's most heavily subscribed sports channels Mario Ferreira, a Portuguese investor mountain climber Vanessa O'Brien Clint Kelly III, an engineer with expertise in autonomous driving systems and Steve Young, former CEO of a large telecommunications company and now a restaurant developer in Melbourne, Florida. My ancestors have always dreamt big and achieved the impossible, and I hope to bring that back. "I am incredibly excited that Space For Humanity has offered me this opportunity and I am honored to be representing Egypt in space for the first time. "New Shepard was designed to fly above the Kármán line so none of our astronauts have an asterisk next to their name," the company tweeted."When we dare to dream big, we achieve things deemed impossible, we break boundaries, write history and set new challenges for the future," she told Space for Humanity, the organization sponsoring her flight. Blue Origin took a thinly veiled swipe at the Galactic flight on Twitter. The discrepancy means Branson's flight to space is seen by some as requiring an asterisk. But the FAI's descriptor isn't a legally binding one, and there have been claims space should start even further out - at 1.5 million kilometers! With the FAA and NASA saying one thing and the FAI saying another. That "line" sits at around 62 miles (100 kilometers) up. The FAI's Astronautic Records Commission, which "appraises and administers manned spaceflight record activities," uses something known as the Kármán line to define where space starts. Branson's Virgin Galactic flight saw him reach an altitude of around 53 miles, so he gets his wings.īut that isn't necessarily where "space" begins, according to the Fédération Aéronautique Internationale. Some scientists have argued this is fairly reasonable based on the distance at which satellites are able to orbit the Earth, and NASA uses a similar number when defining where space begins for crewed missions. The US Federal Aviation Administration gives astronaut wings to anyone who flies above 50 miles (around 80 kilometers). That's why you've likely heard Branson's flight described as reaching "space" or the "edge of space" almost interchangeably - where Earth's atmosphere "ends" and space begins is not perfectly defined. There's been a bit of billionaire bickering over where, exactly, space begins. It's one that Virgin Galactic and Blue Origin have had to wrestle with this week: Where does space start? Space or the edge of space? But perhaps before we even get there, we need to answer a more pressing question.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |