Blue Origin Takes Six Space Tourists On An Out-Of-This-World Trip

The private-sector advancements in space exploration have a number of potential high-brow applications, from research on the moon to the possible colonization of other planets.

But there’s a more down-to-Earth (pardon the pun) use for spacecraft from companies like Blue Origin: space tourism.

For now, it’s limited to those with deep pockets or close ties to the space industry — but in the not-too-distant future, catching a flight to orbit could be as easy as boarding a jet at your local airport.

The latest advancement

Blue Origin, which is owned by Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, has taken passengers to the outer limits of our planet’s atmosphere before, but it’s been about two years since such a mission occurred … until this week, that is.

A launch from Texas on Sunday morning gave six passengers a sense of weightlessness during a flight that lasted about 11 minutes.

Although it wasn’t considered a true trip to outer space, it reached an area just shy of that designation. It’s called the Karman Line and is said to represent the outer boundary of Earth’s atmosphere.

A major milestone

The Blue Orbit flight wasn’t just a big achievement for the company and the broader space industry. It also marked a huge personal payoff for its oldest passenger.

Ed Dwight was the first Black person selected to train as an astronaut when he was selected by the Kennedy administration in the early ‘60s. But he never got the chance to take off on a NASA mission and said he was met with racism during his time at the agency.

This week, however, the 90-year-old finally got a chance to experience what his colleagues did decades ago.

“This is just fabulous,” he said. “I thought I didn’t need this in my life … but I lied. I did.”

Chris Agee May 20th, 2024

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