Watch the Secret Test Flight of Jeff Bezos' Blue Origin Rocket

[Valin]

Popular Mechanics

 

Elon Musk isn't the only internet mogul-turned-rocket-man. Jeff Bezos wants in on the action too. He has a rocket too, just look. Look at it go.

 

A product of Bezos' historically secretive aerospace company Blue Origin, this (let's admit it, pretty phallic) rocket is called the New Shepard, and it quietly launched for the first time yesterday. No livestream here, no pre-launch fanfare. That's probably due to performance anxiety, despite successful tests of the rocket's BE-3 engine in the past.

 

The launch went smoothly and the New Shepard cruised up to 307,000 feet before it detached its crew capsule with no problems. According to Bezos, "Any astronauts on board would have had a very nice journey into space and a smooth return."

 

 

The launch wasn't a total success, though; a hydraulic system failure meant that the rocket's propulsion module couldn't actually be recovered. While Blue Origin works on fixing that little issue and doing more tests on this rocket, it's also working on a much, much larger orbital vehicle that dwarfs the New Shepard in size.

 

 

[clearvision]

Go Texas!

 

Many rocket engineers are moving to our area to work for Firefly another rocket company.

 

I like that the observers in the video are hanging out on a wood deck.

[Valin]

Go Texas!

 

Many rocket engineers are moving to our area to work for Firefly another rocket company.

 

I like that the observers in the video are hanging out on a wood deck.

Uploaded on Feb 8, 2011

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