Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin space venture sent its 10th crew on a quick suborbital ride to space today, extending its list of spacefliers to more than 50. And that list now includes the first customer who preserved a bit of his privacy as he flew.
Blue Origin’s New Shepard reusable rocket ship rose from the company’s Launch Site One in West Texas at 9:49 a.m. CT (7:49 a.m. PT) for a flight that lasted just under 10 minutes and rose to an altitude of 105 kilometers, or 65 miles. That’s beyond the Karman Line, the 100-kilometer level that marks the internationally recognized boundary of space.
The six spacefliers included a Spanish TV host, a media entrepreneur, a fertility-clinic founder, a hedge-fund partner and a venture capitalist who made his second New Shepard flight. And the sixth crew member? Blue Origin said it was respecting that customer’s request for privacy by not releasing his full name. “I like to think that he simply requested he remained under the radar, but over the Karman Line,” launch commentator Isabella Gillespie said.
