Silicon Valley Space Race: Blue Origin New Shepard Rocket Flew

There is a space race on between members of the billion club of Silicon Valley. Most famously and in the forefront is SpaceX. Elon Musk's company has been doing technological feats one would have subscribed to science fiction only. Reusable rockets! Tesla cars thrown into space! A private company is building a capsule for spaceflight! However, SpaceX and Elon Musk are not alone.

Also flying is Blue Origin. Blue Origin is owned by Jeff Bezos of Amazon fame. He is also building his own two stage to orbit rocket to carry payloads and people to space. While SpaceX's rockets are named for the original DARPA program that provided funding (Falcon), Bezos' rockets are named for American astronauts. The test rocket is called the New Sheppard, after Alan Sheppard, the first American astronaut in space.

New Shepard flew today. It was a short hop to demonstrate the vertical takeoff and landing capability and the landing of its capsule. As you can see above, the test seems to have gone well.

It should be noted, sadly, there was another member of the race for space taking place in Silicon Valley. Paul Allen was funding Stratolaunch. However, he has passed away due to cancer and Stratolaunch's grand plans have been scaled back and they will be selling their Roc, the giant aircraft I have posted about before, to Northrop once testing is complete.

More information on the flight:

https://spacenews.com/blue-origin-reaches-space-again-on-latest-new-shepard-test-flight/