New Shepard and Crew Capsule 2.0 Advance Blue Origin in the Modern Space Race

By IM_photo @ Shutterstock.com

On December 12, Blue Origin launched and landed a New Shepard rocket for the first time. After New Shepard hurled the Crew Capsule 326,075 feet into the sky, the capsule used thrusters and parachutes to gently land back on earth. At Popular Mechanics,

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Launching tourists to space with New Shepard is only a small part of Blue Origin’s larger spaceflight plans. In October, Jeff Bezos’s rocket company conducted a hot-fire test of the Blue Engine 4 (BE-4), the most powerful American-built rocket engine in decades.

Blue Origin has big plans for the BE-4, hoping to sell the rocket engine to United Launch Alliance (ULA) for use in its Vulcan rocket, which is currently under development by the Lockheed Martin-Boeing joint venture. In addition, Blue Origin plans to use seven BE-4 engines to power a new 270-foot, 3.85-million-pound-thrust heavy-lift rocket called New Glenn. The company is currently building a factory in Huntsville, Alabama, to assemble New Glenn launch vehicles.

Long-term plans for Blue Origin also include developing a reusable lunar lander, called Blue Moon, with technologies from New Shepard that could land on the moon and then relaunch up to an orbiting lunar station. The New Glenn rocket, once developed, would also give the company a rocket that could be used for a variety of missions from deep space launches to crewed flights.

This week, however, it’s little New Shepard that gets the spotlight. The rocket has been impressive in its reusability, as demonstrated by the second booster that launched and landed five times. Perhaps soon you will be able to buy a ticket for a New Shepard flight to the edge of space.

Crew Capsule 2.0 First Flight

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E.J. Smith - Your Survival Guy

E.J. Smith is Founder of YourSurvivalGuy.com, Managing Director at Richard C. Young & Co., Ltd., a Managing Editor of Richardcyoung.com, and Editor-in-Chief of Youngresearch.com. His focus at all times is on preparing clients and readers for “Times Like These.” E.J. graduated from Babson College in Wellesley, Massachusetts, with a B.S. in finance and investments. In 1995, E.J. began his investment career at Fidelity Investments in Boston before joining Richard C. Young & Co., Ltd. in 1998. E.J. has trained at Sig Sauer Academy in Epping, NH. His first drum set was a 5-piece Slingerland with Zildjians. He grew-up worshiping Neil Peart (RIP) of the band Rush, and loves the song Tom Sawyer—the name of his family’s boat, a Grady-White Canyon 306. He grew up in Mattapoisett, MA, an idyllic small town on the water near Cape Cod. He spends time in Newport, RI and Bartlett, NH—both as far away from Wall Street as one could mentally get. The Newport office is on a quiet, tree lined street not far from the harbor and the log cabin in Bartlett, NH, the “Live Free or Die” state, sits on the edge of the White Mountain National Forest. He enjoys spending time in Key West and Paris. Please get in touch with E.J. at ejsmith@yoursurvivalguy.com To sign up for my free monthly Survive & Thrive letter, click here.