Blue Origin Announces A 6 Person Crew For NS-19
Alan Shepard’s daughter Laura Shepard Churchley and GMA co-anchor Michael Strahan to fly on NS-19 alongside four customers, Blue Origin
“Blue Origin today announced the crew of its upcoming NS-19 flight on December 9 will include two honorary guests and four paying customers. Guests include Good Morning America co-anchor Michael Strahan and Laura Shepard Churchley, the eldest daughter of Alan Shepard, who was the first American to fly to space. The four customers include space industry executive and philanthropist Dylan Taylor, investor Evan Dick, Bess Ventures founder Lane Bess, and Cameron Bess. Lane and Cameron Bess will become the first parent-child pair to fly in space.”
Journey to the Dream, Dylan Taylor, Voyager Space Holdings
“As I wrap up Part 1 of this blog series, “I want to announce a set of gifts that I would ask all other commercial astronauts to consider. I call it buy one, give one, a term I first heard coined by my friends Ami Dror and Navyn Salem. It is simple, donate to worthy causes here on Earth the equivalent of the ticket price for the spaceflight. Commercial Astronauts are predicted to spend several hundred million dollars in the next five years. The impact that cohort could have here on Earth if they all supported this initiative could be very substantial.”
Hear, hear! So should everyone who buys a self-indulgence.
How much are the paying customers subsidizing these celebrity guest seats? Is there even a price per seat info for a flight yet? Is it a sliding scale based on how many rich vs influencers there are on the flight?
The guests are in the coach seats. The paying customers get softer seats with an amenity kit of eyeshades, socks, and a toothbrush.
Its going to get a mite crowded – not much room to enjoy floating around without bumping into someone.
I was thinking the same thing. Wally Funk commented after her flight that she would have liked to have had more space to move around; even though that crew was limited to 4 participants.
Looked to me like there was room for a couple more people and still allow a reasonable amount of space, although the wide angle cameras made that somewhat difficult to gauge.
Flying six passengers will allow them to keep the price a bit lower. Although that doesn’t seem to be an issue at the moment since there currently seems to be plenty of people willing to pay multiple millions of dollars to fly on New Shepard. But that probably won’t last forever and at some point in the future they will have to compete at least somewhat with VG on price.
The super rich meanwhile who want more room for floating around can always purchase an entire flight and then bring along two or three friends. Or maybe four rich friends or family members might pool their money to purchase a flight. Might seem far-fetched, but it would be a whole lot cheaper than the four of them flying into orbit on Dragon.
I find myself less interested than with the last flight. I’m not surprised this time. It strikes me, again, as a glorified carnival ride, occurring in the shadow of bigger things aimed at larger goals.
Keep flying! The more that go up, the cheaper it gets! We should offer tax credits to everyone who rides.
Publicity stunt from the sore loser.