Blue Origin has achieved a significant milestone with the successful landing of its NS-26 mission, marking the 26th flight of its New Shepard rocket since the inaugural uncrewed launch in January 2021, and the eighth to carry passengers. This latest mission, which launched on May 7, followed a 12-minute flight that took off at 9:07 a.m. EST, reached speeds of up to 2,238 mph, and ascended to 341,000 feet before reaching its peak altitude.
As the capsule touched down at 9:19 a.m., Nicolina Elrick joyfully exclaimed, “I went to space!” The six passengers, who underwent just a few days of training and had no control over the fully autonomous flight, comprised a diverse group in terms of age, gender, nationality, and profession. The crew included Nicolina Elrick, Rob Ferl, Eugene Grin, Dr. Eiman Jahangir, Karsen Kitchen, and Ephraim Rabin. The flight was marked by enthusiastic reactions and exclamations of surprise, as evidenced by the Blue Origin video of the event, which captured shouts of “Holy sh*t!”
At 21 years old, Karsen Kitchen became the youngest woman to cross the Kármán line, the boundary of space. Reflecting on her experience, Kitchen, a senior at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, shared, “I have so many memories of looking up at the night sky when I was younger. I would come in and say, ‘Y’all, I want to be an astronaut.’ It feels unreal. I still feel like I haven’t fully processed it all.” Rob Ferl also made history by becoming the first NASA-funded researcher to conduct a plant experiment as part of a commercial suborbital space crew.
Ariane Cornell, Blue Origin’s launch commentator, praised the flight’s success, calling it “one of the cleanest flights I’ve seen from this rocket,” after the capsule landed in the West Texas desert. Kitchen’s father, Jim Kitchen, a professor at UNC and a passenger on the New Shepard 20 flight in 2022, was present to greet his daughter following the successful landing.
The timing of the NS-26 mission was notable, as it coincided with the scheduled launch of the Polaris Dawn mission, which faced multiple delays. Polaris Dawn’s launch was first postponed due to a helium leak on the rocket and then further delayed after a Falcon 9 rocket booster exploded during landing, leading the FAA to halt SpaceX operations pending an investigation.
The Polaris Dawn mission is spearheaded and partially funded by billionaire Jared Isaacman. Unlike Blue Origin’s 12-minute flight, which offers a brief experience of weightlessness, Polaris Dawn is a more extensive five-day mission. It aims to reach an altitude of 870 miles above Earth on its first day, marking the highest point reached by a human spaceflight mission since the Apollo moon missions. On the third day, Isaacman and mission pilot Scott Poteet will perform the first civilian spacewalk.
In the evolving space tourism landscape, three main types of space travel have emerged over the past two years. SpaceX is pioneering a unique category with its extended, complex missions. In contrast, Blue Origin and Virgin Galactic are competing in the short-duration spaceflight market, offering 10- to 12-minute experiences that cross the Kármán line, considered the edge of space.
Although Blue Origin has not disclosed the exact price for individual seats on its flights, Virgin Galactic’s pricing is known. Virgin Galactic reportedly charges $450,000 per seat. Its final Unity spaceplane flight occurred on June 8, 2004, and the company plans to introduce new Delta-class vehicles in the coming years. Virgin Galactic’s new vehicles could potentially accommodate 125 spaceflights annually, with an expected average ticket price of $600,000.
As the space tourism industry continues to grow, both Blue Origin and Virgin Galactic are positioning themselves to cater to a diverse range of customers, from those seeking brief, exhilarating flights to those willing to invest in more extensive space missions.
