Hot on the heels of Virgin Galactic’s VSS Unity launch just a bit more than a week prior, Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin launched—and landed—its New Shepard flight mission to the edge of space last July 20, 2021, at around 9:12 a.m. local time. The rocket—which launched from the company’s Launch Site One around 40 kilometers (25 miles) north of Van Horn, Texas—carried with it four passengers for the trip: Bezos himself, his younger brother Mark, Oliver Daemen, an 18-year-old Dutch physics student, and 82-year-old Wally Funk, a pioneer female aviator and a member of the famous Mercury 13. The New Shepard mission also made headlines for its flight path; the rocket passed the Kármán line, an arbitrary line set at around 100 kilometers (62 miles) above sea level. Its flight path enabled the rocket to soar more than 15 kilometers (9 miles) higher than the peak height of Virgin Galactic’s VSS Unity flight just a few days prior.
The Details
As opposed to the fully-crewed VSS Unity, the New Shepard flight was fully automated; no pilots were required for the flight. (Funk, a trained aviator and flight instructor, rode as a passenger.) The craft did not need a “mothership” like Virgin Galactic’s VMS Eve either; New Shepard was designed like a rocket, and took off vertically from a launch pad.
The rocket took off at around 9:16 a.m. local time, then soared to a height of around 107 kilometers (351,210 feet), after which the four passengers experienced several minutes of weightlessness before descending back down to Earth. The descending rocket touched down at around 9:16 a.m. local time, with the capsule containing the passengers following around 6 minutes later, at 9:22 a.m. local time. After landing, Blue Origin’s capsule communicator Sarah Knights checked in on the passengers; Bezos answered: “Best day ever!”
The Firsts of Many
Beyond its maximum height, New Shepard made history by carrying its passengers: the flight carried both the youngest and the oldest person to ever go to space. Oliver Daemen, at 18 years of age, is now the youngest person to ever head beyond Earth’s atmosphere. Daemen, a physics major, is the son of Joes Daemen, CEO of Netherlands-based Somerset Capital Partners. Daemen’s seat was originally offered for auction to the highest bidder, and was actually won by an anonymous bidder for US$ 28 million. However, the bidder was unavailable for the launch due to scheduling conflicts; instead, the seat went to Joes Daemen, the second highest bidder, who gave it to his son. For comparison, the previous record-holder for the youngest person to ever go to space was the Russian cosmonaut Gherman Titov; Titov was 26 year old when he completed his 17-orbit mission around Earth aboard the Vostok II mission back in 1961.
Of particular importance, however, is the presence of Wally Funk. At 82 years old, she now holds the record for being the oldest space-farer. The previous record-holder was NASA astronaut John Glenn, who was 77 years old during his nine-day mission aboard the space shuttle orbiter Discovery back in 1998. Funk also made news for being a member of the Mercury 13, a group of trained female pilots also known as the First Lady Astronaut Trainees (FLATs). The thirteen women were originally trained in secret alongside the all-male Mercury 7 during the height of the United States’ “space race” against the Soviet Union during the 1950s and 1960s. Unfortunately, the FLATs program was cancelled before many of the women were even able to attempt their required tests to pass, leaving the legacy of the first Americans in space to go to the Mercury 7 instead. Funk, however, continued to fly and train pilots after Mercury 13, having taught over 3,000 people and logging in over 19,600 flight hours over her career. With the New Shepard flight, Funk was able to fulfill her original mission more than five decades prior. (Interestingly, John Glenn was a member of Mercury 7, as well as Alan Shepard, the first American in space and whose Blue Origin’s New Shepard was named after.)
Bibliography
- Krishna, S. (2020, July 25). The Mercury 13: The women who could have been NASA’s first female astronauts. Space.com. Retrieved July 21, 2021, from https://www.space.com/mercury-13.html
- Pappas, S. (2021`, July 15). 18-year-old physics student to fly to edge of space with Bezos. LiveScience. Retrieved July 21, 2021, from https://www.livescience.com/fourth-blue-origin-passenger-physics-student.html
- Potenza, A. (2018, May 29). We fact-checked Mercury 13, Netflix’s doc about NASA’s first women astronaut trainees. The Verge. Retrieved July 21, 2020, from https://www.theverge.com/2018/5/29/17393698/netflix-documentary-mercury-13-women-space-astronauts-margaret-weitekamp-interview
- Szondy, D. (2021, July 15). Blue Origin New Shepard to carry youngest person ever to fly into space. New Atlas. Retrieved July 21, 2021, from https://newatlas.com/space/blue-origin-new-shepard-passenger-18-year-old-oliver-daemen/
- Weisberger, M. (2021, July 20). Blue Origin record-breaking rocket launch just brought Jeff Bezos to space and back. LiveScience. Retrieved July 21, 2021, from https://www.livescience.com/bezos-new-shepard-launches.html
