Blue Origin’s Successful Launch and Flight into Space

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“Amazon founder Jeff Bezos aims to make space travel safe and routine”

Jeff Bezos, Amazon.com Inc. founder, made the first human space flight of the New Shepard rocket and capsule launched Tuesday morning on July 20, the 52nd anniversary of the Apollo 11 moon landing. The New Shepard reached the edge of space and safely returned after a flight of just over 10 minutes.

The New Shepard rocket and capsule carried Mr. Bezos and three others (Mark Bezos, Wally Funk, and Oliver Daemon). The rocket and capsule are named for the belief that this blue planet is just the starting point for humankind’s future. The New Shepard capsule reached an apogee of 351,210 feet in altitude.

Flying into Space

Most space experts say that space starts at the point where orbital dynamic forces become more important than aerodynamic forces, or where the atmosphere alone is not enough to support a flying vessel at suborbital speeds.

Historically, it’s been difficult to pin that point of reaching space and earning your astronaut wings at a particular altitude. Hungarian physicist Theodore von Kármán determined the atmosphere versus space boundary to be around 50 miles up, or roughly 80 kilometers above sea level. Today, the Kármán line is set at what NOAA calls “an imaginary boundary” that’s 62 miles up, or roughly a hundred kilometers above sea level.

The Federal Aviation Administration, the U.S. Air Force, NOAA, and NASA generally use 50 miles (80 kilometers) as the boundary, with the Air Force granting astronaut wings to flyers who go higher than this mark. At the same time, NASA Mission Control places the line at 76 miles (122 kilometers).

References:

  1. https://www.wsj.com/articles/jeff-bezos-blue-origin-crew-set-for-space-debut-11626775480
  2. https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/article/where-is-the-edge-of-space-and-what-is-the-karman-line
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