Blue Origin launches crew to space for first time, nails landings!

The Space Race continues with Blue Origin launches a crew to suborbital space for the 1st Time!

We have had Richard Branson and his team launched into the threshold of space about a week ago and today we see that Jeff Bezos kept the race going... Their Blue Horizon's craft"New Shephard" reached a velocity of 2230 mph and a height of 66.5 miles. The exact maximum velocity and final altitude reached will, I am sure, be in the record books...

"The capsule carried Bezos, 57, his brother Mark, 53, 82-year-old aviation pioneer Wally Funk and 18-year-old Dutch physics student Oliver Daemen, 66.5 miles (107 kilometers) above Earth, then came down for a parachute-aided, dust-raising landing in the West Texas scrublands. The rocket also returned safely, making a vertical, powered touchdown at its designated landing zone. Its descent was punctuated by a deafening sonic boom, along with raucous cheers from the Blue Origin workers here who watched the flight.

All of this action, from liftoff to landings, took just over 10 minutes. But it was doubtless the experience of a lifetime for the four passengers.

"Oh my god!" Bezos said during a post-flight press conference today. "My expectations were high, and they were dramatically exceeded." - Mike Wall, Space.com

It is interesting to note that the Blue Horizon's craft separated into Booster and Crew module and that the Booster made a perfect landing, while the crew module or capsule parachuted to an Earth landing at a speed of approx. 16 mph... The Virgin Galactic flight ended with their flight landing on a runway..., which is the way I would want to land... It will be interesting to see what ultimately will be the landing method chosen somewhere down the road...

Enjoy my Brothers and Sisters...
Kerry
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