New Shepard Goes To Space – And Back – Again
Blue Origin’s New Shepard Goes To Space – And Back – Again (with video)
“New Shepard flew again for the eighth time on April 29, 2018, from Blue Origin’s West Texas Launch Site. Known as Mission 8 (M8), the mission featured a reflight of the vehicle flown on Mission 7. The Crew Capsule reached an apogee of 351,000 feet (66 miles, 107 kilometers) – the altitude we’ve been targeting for operations. For the second time, Blue Origin’s test dummy “Mannequin Skywalker” flew to space conducting astronaut telemetry and science studies. The flight also carried research payloads for NASA, the German Aerospace Center (DLR), and commercial customers.”
Congratulations on another flight!
yet still no Presser.
Virgin Galactic will apparently only be taking tourists above 50 miles, at least initially. That difference may not matter to some of the participants, but I can imagine that a lot of the people who will be spending that much money will go with Blue Origin so they can claim to have officially been in space.
And while duplicating an X-15 flight including air launch will I’m sure be fun, I don’t think it will beat launching from the ground on a rocket into space. We don’t know the price yet for New Shepard flights, but even if it costs more than VG, I suspect that it will be the preferred ride to brag about at the country club.
Since you brought up the X-15, the USAF did use 50 miles as the altitude which an X-15 pilot had to exceed to earn the Astronaut Badge. As long as Virgin Galactic is clear in their marketing, they won’t get into legal trouble with this.
But yes, if I had the cash and were to choose between the two, I’d likely pick the Blue Origin capsule due to the higher altitude. Of course, if I had the money, I would fly on them both just to say I had (and to compare and contrast the two experiences).
Interestingly the three civilian X-15 pilots who exceeded 50 miles did not get astronaut wings, at least not at the time. However in 2005 NASA awarded astronaut wings to Dana, McKay and Walker, the latter two posthumously. Actually Walker exceeded 100 km on two of his X-15 flights (the only X-15 flights to do so).
For Virgin Galactic I still think it will be awkward. On their website they use the words space, astronaut, astronaut wings etc. all over the place, with no qualifiers. At some point I’m sure you’re right they will inform the participants that they will not be reaching the internationally accepted definition of space. Or maybe they do already when people make their deposits, maybe in the paperwork that they sign it states that reaching space is not guaranteed on any particular flight. Although I would guess that if for technical reasons a flight fell really short, like say 30 miles, they would probably let them fly again on a future flight.
100 km altitude, as the accepted or official line between atmospheric and space flight is fine. We have to draw the line somewhere.
But I will note that Von Karman original picked that due to a good but assumtion dependant critria. Spacecraft can stay at a constant altitude due to their horizontal speed and a centrifugal force which balances gravity. Aircraft stay at a constant altitude due to a horizontal speed and aerodynamic lift which balances gravity. Von Karman drew his line at the point where the centrifugal and aerodynamic forces would make an equal contribution. But that depends on the vehicle’s coefficient of lift and atmospheric density as a function of altitude.
100 km is a reasonable guess and a fine number for an official standard. But, based on Van Karman’s logic, a few dozen kilometers either way isn’t a huge deal. If someone said, “I’m an astronaut because I’ve gotten to 101 km and you aren’t because you’ve only gotten to 99 km,” I’d wonder about that person’s sanity.
I don’t think it’s a question of sanity, although maybe ignorance. I suspect that there are plenty of perfectly sane people out there who are not aware of just how gradual the transition from atmosphere to space is. But either way we’re talking about crossing what is essentially a border, similar to the borders between countries, which can themselves be somewhat arbitrary (49th parallel comes to mind). In many cases, like driving within the EU, you wouldn’t even know you are crossing from one country into another other than a sign. If a tourist went to Holland and Belgium, and at one point got within a kilometer of the French border but didn’t cross the border, would they tell their friends back home that they have been to France? Just this past week there was great attention on two world leaders stepping a few feet into each other’s countries.
Of course just driving a few miles inside the French border isn’t the same thing as going to Paris, just as briefly skirting with the Karman line isn’t the same as orbiting the Earth at 400 km. But reaching the widely accepted standard of 100 km is a distinction that I think will be important to many people. Below 100 km a tourist can say they were essentially in space, practically in space, for all intents and purposes in space, etc. But simply by crossing the Karman line they can say they were in space and no one can argue with them. I think that is going to matter to a lot of the people who will be plunking down a huge chunk of change for a trip into space.
I think that’s a stretch. If someone just crossed the French border by a kilometer or two while in Belgium, or even if he took the train from London to Brussels without getting off, I think he’d just get laughed at for claiming he’d been to France. Can I say I’ve been to Poland and Russia? I’ve taken a flight from Munich to Riga which passed through their airspace. Or changing planes at Heathrow and connecting between international flights? Would that count as visiting the UK? Yes, crossing the Karman line might give someone a chance to brag. But only before orbital tourist flights become more common. After that, he’d just look silly.
(Oh, and a minor nit which is just a personal gripe. The country is the Netherlands, not Holland. North and South Holland are just two of twelve provinces and neither borders Belgium. How would you feel if the Dutch kept calling the United States, “California”?)
If someone only briefly crossed the border into France and then said “We visited France on our vacation”, obviously if they said it that way at their country club they would be laughed it. But if they were talking to someone who had never traveled outside of the small town where they were born, that person would probably be impressed that they even made it to France regardless of how much of it they actually saw. Actually even in the country club I doubt if someone will be laughed at for claiming they have been in space if they only reached 50 miles, or even 49 miles, since I think most people will be impressed that they rode a capsule or a spaceplane that high up.
But let’s get back to my point, I think that for many people who go on these flights it will be an important distinction for them whether or not they reach the widely accepted international boundary for space. I’m not sure if you are in disagreement with my assertion that many people will feel that way about it, or if you are just quibbling with that type of thinking. I never said I agree with them. Personally I would be quite happy with a trip even 50 km high (hopefully at half price!).
Yes, there is a certain amount of prestige (or bragging rights) to someone who has crossed an official line between Earth and Space. Even if it’s really not a sharp line in any meaningful sense. So I expect some people will pay a great amount of money to do so. But as time goes on and more impressive trips because possible, that’s going to look a bit silly, if not stupid. The “real” space tourists, who have actually spent time on orbit will make fun of the “so called astronauts” who just blew their money on a suborbital hop and a few minutes of free fall. At that point, I suspect no one will care whether the suborbital hop was one kilometer above the Karman line or one kilometer below it.
If spending $250,000 for a suborbital flight to the Karman line is blowing money, I’m not sure what you would call spending millions for a few hours in orbit, and even more than that for a night in a space hotel, and who knows how much to circle the Moon. Even assuming that all of these prices eventually come down, I think it will be a long time before suborbital tourist flights into space become ho-hum.
Eight launches – I wonder how close they are to putting a test pilot(s) on board?
Blue Origin stated after that launch that the craft is autonomous and that they will not be utilizing test pilots but will use test “subjects” their words.
I have always liked the old, Soviet job title of “Flight Engineer” rather than NASA’s use of “Pilot.” (Especially during the Apollo program when the Commander flew the Lunar Module and the LM Pilot was actually the copilot.) Do the Russians still have a flight engineer position?
Same for me with the term astronaut which is a space sailor. So if you are not actually involved with running the ship you are an astrotech.
In a literal sense, you’re probably right. Google translate gives me ναύτης for sailor. But I think as a root in English words, “traveler” might be acceptable.
True. I go with sailor because of the frequency you saw it relating to that. Jason and Argonauts were sailors on the ship Argo. Also when used with words like Nautilus it is a sea shell. There it is tied to the water sailors sailed. The word Nautical is sailors sailing ships…
but who knows with the ancients… smiles
Yeah, this is probably something a classics major could do for a senior thesis (and possibly has done.) Medea was definitely a passenger on the Argo, not crew, and I don’t think any version of the myth calls her an Argonaut. So sailor rather than traveler might be more faithful to the literature. But the hypothetical classics major might check the jobs of everyone else called an Argonaut in all the surviving version of the myth.
OK, (former) Classics major checking in here (I originally wanted to teach, and was accepted at grad school at some name-dropping schools; but then had a sobering look at the job market, but never lost the love of the language that spans so many centuries).
ANYway…according to the LSJ (that would be Lidell and Scott Greek Lexicon for you poor uneducated saps:-) So LSJ is now online! I used to lug a 18 pound book around.
LSJ cites a Sapphic fragment for ναύτης meaning ‘sailor’; and cites Euripides’ meaning ‘by sea’; Plato’s ναύτης ἄρχω or ‘first (early) sailor.
So, yea, sailor it is, by a mile.
The meaning of ναύτης hardly changed through the centuries; in classical Greek it meant sailor, period. Vlad is right, as usual.
The commander-pilot designation started with Gemini. These were highly qualified and competitive test pilots and apparently one reason for using that designation was to avoid any of them grumbling about being assigned as “co-pilot”. This designation continued through Shuttle even though the commander did most of the flying. In fact during landing the pilot only got to fly the Shuttle for a few seconds during the heading alignment circle turn. This gave the pilot a chance to get a feel for the handling as compared to the sim, since pilots quite often commanded their next mission.
Soyuz still has a commander and two flight engineers.