{"id":18031,"date":"2019-06-05T20:45:26","date_gmt":"2019-06-05T12:45:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp-productionenv-bjg9h2g2bgg5b8aa.southeastasia-01.azurewebsites.net\/news\/racer-rocketeer-and-tour-guide-jimmy-shane-shows-off-blue-origins-crew-capsule-at-remars\/"},"modified":"2019-06-05T20:45:26","modified_gmt":"2019-06-05T12:45:26","slug":"racer-rocketeer-and-tour-guide-jimmy-shane-shows-off-blue-origins-crew-capsule-at-remars","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/news\/racer-rocketeer-and-tour-guide-jimmy-shane-shows-off-blue-origins-crew-capsule-at-remars\/","title":{"rendered":"Racer, rocketeer \u2026 and tour guide? Jimmy Shane shows off Blue Origin\u2019s crew capsule at re:MARS"},"content":{"rendered":"<figure id=\"attachment_502858\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-502858\" style=\"width: 630px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full-width wp-image-502858\" src=\"https:\/\/cdn.geekwire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/190604-blue-630x420.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"630\" height=\"420\" srcset=\"https:\/\/cdn.geekwire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/190604-blue-630x420.jpg 630w, https:\/\/cdn.geekwire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/190604-blue-768x512.jpg 768w, https:\/\/cdn.geekwire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/190604-blue-1260x840.jpg 1260w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 630px) 100vw, 630px\"><figcaption data-nosnippet=\"\" id=\"caption-attachment-502858\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">A mockup of the crew capsule for Blue Origin\u2019s New Shepard spaceship is laid out beneath the sparkling lights of the Aria Resort Hotel in Las Vegas. (GeekWire Photo \/ Alan Boyle)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>LAS VEGAS \u2014 One of the big attractions at this week\u2019s Amazon re:MARS conference is a mockup of the crew capsule for Blue Origin\u2019s New Shepard spaceship \u2014 but chances are that few of the attendees lining up to try out the seats know who their tour guide is.<\/p>\n<p>And that\u2019s just fine with Jimmy Shane, who\u2019s an engineer and manager at Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos\u2019 space venture as well as a prize-winning hydroplane driver for the U-1 Miss HomeStreet team.<\/p>\n<p>I recognized Shane at the capsule, and he recognized me, thanks in part to GeekWire\u2019s stories&nbsp;about his passions for fast boats and fast rockets back in 2017. Shane won hydroplane racing\u2019s national championship that year, but suffered some tough breaks during the 2018 racing season.<\/p>\n<p>Shane told me he was sent to Las Vegas because he works on the New Shepard suborbital spacecraft at Blue Origin\u2019s headquarters in Kent, Wash., and because he\u2019s used to working with media types and the general public in his racing role. Check out his spiel in this off-the-cuff video I recorded when it was my turn to sit in one of the crew capsule\u2019s six seats:<\/p>\n<p><iframe title=\"Take a virtual New Shepard ride at re:MARS\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/3YqpoaHXPAQ?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen=\"\" data-ratio=\"0.5625\" data-width=\"800\" data-height=\"450\" style=\"display: block; margin: 0px; width: 800px; height: 450px;\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>Most of the subject matter covered at this week\u2019s inaugural re:MARS conference focuses on Amazon\u2019s turf: machine learning, automation and robotics. But the \u201cS\u201d in MARS stands for space, and Shane isn\u2019t the only space expert showing up in Vegas.<\/p>\n<p>Patrick Zeitouni, Blue Origin\u2019s head of advanced development programs, is due to discuss the 19-year-old company\u2019s off-world aspirations at one of today\u2019s sessions. Several other speakers will be addressing spacey subjects, ranging from Red Planet rover technology to the prospects for doing cloud computing in orbit. And it wouldn\u2019t be surprising if Bezos himself touched on his outer-space vision during a keynote on Thursday.<\/p>\n<p>By all accounts, the New Shepard program is still on track to start launching people to space and back later this year \u2014 at first on a test basis, most likely with Blue Origin employees in the seats.<\/p>\n<p>Will Shane eventually get a turn? It\u2019s way too early to say, but riding a roaring boat should be good preparation for riding a roaring rocket.<\/p>\n<h4><strong>More re:MARS:<\/strong> Robert Downey Jr. wants to clean up the planet<\/h4>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A mockup of the crew capsule for Blue Origin\u2019s New Shepard spaceship is laid out beneath the sparkling lights of the Aria Resort Hotel in Las Vegas. (GeekWire Photo \/ Alan Boyle) LAS VEGAS \u2014 One of the big attractions at this week\u2019s Amazon re:MARS conference is a mockup of the crew capsule for Blue [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[509,5011,5012,1250,5003],"class_list":["post-18031","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-blue-origin","tag-hydroplane-races","tag-jimmy-shane","tag-new-shepard","tag-remars"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18031"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18031"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18031\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18031"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18031"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18031"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}