Blue Origin 周六早上将著名宇航员艾伦·谢泼德的女儿迈克尔·斯特拉汉和四名付费客户送上了太空边缘

该小组于美国东部时间上午 9 点 01 从该公司位于德克萨斯州范霍恩乡村小镇附近的发射设施乘坐蓝色起源的亚轨道太空旅游火箭发射升空，贝佐斯在那里拥有一个庞大的牧场，并进行了一次 10 分钟的超音速飞行，到达在跳伞着陆之前，在地球表面上方 60 多英里处。

斯特拉恩喜气洋洋地从太空舱里出来，贝佐斯在那里迎接了他。

“我想回去，”他说。 “Gs ……这不是整容，而是瘦脸。我知道我 85 岁时会是什么样子。”

关于此次发布的所有信息

Strahan 和 Laura Shepard Churchley 的父亲 Alan Shepard 于 1961 年进行了一次亚轨道飞行，后来登上了月球，他们与投资者 Dylan Taylor、Evan Dick 和 Lane Bess 以及 Bess 的成年子女 Cameron Bess 一起骑行。谁是付费客户。蓝色起源说斯特拉汉和谢泼德·丘奇利是“名誉嘉宾”，就像蓝色起源最后一位被送到太空边缘的名人威廉·夏特纳一样，他们不需要付钱。

这次飞行标志着 Blue Origin 首次坐满其以艾伦·谢泼德命名的新谢泼德火箭和太空舱的所有六个座位。在该公司之前的两次飞行中——包括 7 月份将贝佐斯本人送入太空的飞行——只有四个座位被占用。

这意味着乘客的回旋空间比之前的客户少一些，尤其是身高 6 英尺 5 英寸的 Strahan。

斯特拉汉在上个月的早安美国节目中宣布了他参加飞行的计划，并指出蓝色起源让他测量了他的飞行服，并让他测试了新谢泼德太空舱的一个座位以确保他适合。

斯特拉恩在 NFL 度过了 15 个赛季，全部效力于纽约巨人队，并于 2007 年与他们一起赢得了超级碗。他于 2014 年入选职业橄榄球名人堂。

进入亚轨道

这次飞行与夏特纳的飞行和他之前的贝索斯的飞行相似，与大多数人早上上班所需的时间相比，离开地面的时间更少。

亚轨道飞行与我们大多数人在想到太空飞行时所想到的轨道飞行类型大不相同。 Blue Origin 的 New Shepard 飞行是短暂的上下旅行，尽管它们在地球上空超过 62 英里，一些科学家认为这标志着外层空间的边缘。

轨道火箭需要产生足够的动力以达到至少 17,000 英里/小时的速度，或称为轨道速度，基本上为航天器提供足够的能量来继续围绕地球旋转，而不是被重力立即拖回。

亚轨道飞行需要的功率和速度要少得多。这意味着火箭燃烧所需的时间更少，烧焦航天器外部的温度更低，航天器上的力和压缩撕裂更小，并且通常出现问题的机会更少。

新谢泼德的亚轨道飞行速度大约是音速的三倍——大约每小时 2,300 英里——并直接向上飞行，直到火箭耗尽大部分燃料。然后乘员舱在轨迹顶部与火箭分离，并在舱室几乎悬停在其飞行路径的顶部之前短暂地继续向上，让乘客有几分钟的失重状态。

新谢泼德太空舱随后会部署大量降落伞，在着陆之前将其下降速度降至每小时 20 英里以下。

大图

这次飞行标志着蓝色起源希望将许多太空旅游发射的第三次发射，将富有的客户带到太空边缘。它可能是一项业务线，有助于为蓝色起源的其他更雄心勃勃的太空项目提供资金，其中包括开发 300 英尺高的火箭，其功率足以将卫星送入轨道和月球着陆器。

目前尚不清楚周六航班上的付费客户为他们的座位支付了多少钱。 Blue Origin 尚未公开确定票价，尽管该公司在今年早些时候举办了一场拍卖会，在贝索斯 7 月的航班期间与贝索斯一起出售了一个额外的座位。

拍卖的获胜者同意为这个座位支付高达 2800 万美元的费用，但那个仍然不愿透露姓名的人选择暂时不乘坐。奥利弗·戴门 (Oliver Daemen) 当时 18 岁，他的父亲在票务拍卖中获得亚军，他代替了出场。

在今天的航班上与 Strahan 和 Shepard 一起乘坐的 Taylor 告诉 CNN Business，他也参加了拍卖，但没有获胜。然而，蓝色起源后来伸出手给他让座。他拒绝透露他最终为机票支付了多少，并指出 Blue Origin 要求其乘客签署保密协议，禁止客户谈论发射的某些方面。

但太空投资公司 Voyager 的董事长兼首席执行官泰勒确实承诺向慈善机构捐赠等量的资金——包括向促进残疾人进入太空的组织捐赠，并为航空航天业的女性和有色人种提供奖学金.

泰勒希望其他购买太空航班的富人也做类似的事情，因为亿万富翁 Shift4 首席执行官贾里德·艾萨克曼 (Jared Isaacman) 决定乘坐 SpaceX 火箭进行为期三天的太空远足，为圣裘德的慈善筹款活动筹款，艾萨克曼向艾萨克曼捐赠了 2 亿美元.

这就是泰勒希望每个人都遵循的模式。他说他会鼓励周六蓝色起源航班上的其他付费客户也这样做。

“我的猜测是，未来几年商业航天飞行将花费 300 或 4 亿美元，”泰勒说。 “而且买得起这些机票的人也能买得起两倍的机票，对吧？我的意思是，这并不是说他们把最后一美元买一张机票。所以这就是我想要呼吁采取行动的原因。 ”

Michael Strahan, Alan Shepard's daughter, and four others rocket to the edge of space

New York (CNN)Jeff Bezos' rocket company, Blue Origin, sent Good Morning America host Michael Strahan, the daughter of famed astronaut Alan Shepard, and four paying customers on a supersonic joy ride to the edge of space Saturday morning.

The group blasted off aboard Blue Origin's suborbital space tourism rocket at 9:01 am CT from the company's launch facilities near the rural town of Van Horn, Texas, where Bezos owns a sprawling ranch, and took a supersonic, 10-minute flight that reached more than 60 miles above the Earth's surface before parachuting to a landing.

Strahan emerged beaming from the capsule where he was greeted by Bezos.

"I wanna go back," he said. "The Gs...it's not a face lift, it's a face drop. I know what I'm going to look like at 85."

All about this launch

Strahan and Laura Shepard Churchley, whose father Alan Shepard went on a suborbital flight in 1961 and later walked on the moon, rode alongside investors Dylan Taylor, Evan Dick, and Lane Bess, as well as Bess' adult child, Cameron Bess — all of whom were paying customers. Blue Origin said that Strahan and Shepard Churchley were "honorary guests," much like the last celebrity Blue Origin sent to the edge of space, William Shatner, and did not have to pay their way.

This flight marks the first time that Blue Origin filled all six seats on its New Shepard rocket and capsule, which is named for Alan Shepard. On the company's two previous flights — including the July flight that sent Bezos himself to space — only four of the seats were taken up.

That means the passengers had a bit less wiggle room than prior customers, especially Strahan, who is six feet, five inches tall.

Strahan announced his plans to join the flight during a segment on Good Morning America last month, noting that Blue Origin had him measured for his flight suit and had him test out one of the New Shepard capsule's seats to ensure he'd fit.

Strahan spent 15 season in the NFL, all of them with the New York Giants, where he won the Super Bowl with them in 2007. He was inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 2014.

Going suborbital

The flight followed a similar profile to Shatner's flight and Bezos before him, spending less time off the ground than it takes most people to get to work in the morning.

Suborbital flights differ greatly from orbital flights of the type most of us think of when we think of spaceflight. Blue Origin's New Shepard flights are brief, up-and-down trips, though they travel more than 62 miles above Earth, which some scientists consider to mark the edge of outer space.

Orbital rockets need to drum up enough power to hit at least 17,000 miles per hour, or what's known as orbital velocity, essentially giving a spacecraft enough energy to continue whipping around the Earth rather than being dragged immediately back down by gravity.

Suborbital flights require far less power and speed. That means less time the rocket is required to burn, lower temperatures scorching the outside of the spacecraft, less force and compression ripping at the spacecraft, and generally fewer opportunities for something to go very wrong.

New Shepard's suborbital flights hit about about three times the speed of sound — roughly 2,300 miles per hour — and fly directly upward until the rocket expends most of its fuel. The crew capsule then separates from the rocket at the top of the trajectory and briefly continues upward before the capsule almost hovers at the top of its flight path, giving the passengers a few minutes of weightlessness.

The New Shepard capsule then deploys a large plume of parachutes to slow its descent to less than 20 miles per hour before it hits the ground.

The big picture

This flight marked the third of what Blue Origin hopes will be many space tourism launches, carrying wealthy customers to the edge of space. It could be a line of business that helps to fund Blue Origin's other, more ambitious space projects, which include developing a 300-foot-tall rocket powerful enough to blast satellites into orbit and a lunar lander.

It's not clear how much money the paying customers on Saturday's flight shelled out for their seats. Blue Origin has not publicly identified a ticket price, though the company did host an auction earlier this year to sell an extra seat alongside Bezos during his July flight.

The winner of that auction agreed to fork over a whopping $28 million for the seat, but that still-anonymous individual opted not to take the ride just yet. Oliver Daemen, then an 18-year-old whose father was a runner-up in the ticket auction, stepped in instead.

Taylor, who rode alongside Strahan and Shepard on today's flight, told CNN Business that he also participated in the auction but didn't win. Blue Origin later reached out to offer him a seat, however. He declined to say how much he ultimately paid for his ticket, noting that Blue Origin asks its passengers to sign non-disclosure agreements that preclude customers from talking about certain aspects of the launch.

But Taylor, the chairman and CEO of space investing firm Voyager, did pledge to donate an equivalent amount of money to charity — including donations to organizations that promote access to space for disabled people and provide fellowships to women and people of color in the aerospace industry.

Taylor wants other wealthy individuals who buy flights to space to do something similar, taking after billionaire Shift4 CEO Jared Isaacman's decision to make his three-day excursion to space aboard a SpaceX rocket into a charity fundraiser for St. Jude to which Isaacman donated $200 million.

That's the model Taylor hopes everyone will follow. He said he would encourage his fellow paying customers on Saturday's Blue Origin flight to do the same.

"My guess is, it's going to be $300 or $400 million spent on commercial spaceflight in the next few years," Taylor said. "And the people that can afford these tickets can afford twice the ticket, right? I mean, it's not like they're putting their last dollar to buy a space ticket. So that's kind of why I want to do the call to action."