{"id":19006,"date":"2017-04-05T23:03:01","date_gmt":"2017-04-05T15:03:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp-productionenv-bjg9h2g2bgg5b8aa.southeastasia-01.azurewebsites.net\/news\/video-heres-what-its-like-to-sit-inside-blue-origins-new-shepard-spaceship\/"},"modified":"2017-04-05T23:03:01","modified_gmt":"2017-04-05T15:03:01","slug":"video-heres-what-its-like-to-sit-inside-blue-origins-new-shepard-spaceship","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/news\/video-heres-what-its-like-to-sit-inside-blue-origins-new-shepard-spaceship\/","title":{"rendered":"Video: Here\u2019s what it\u2019s like to sit inside Blue Origin\u2019s New Shepard spaceship"},"content":{"rendered":"<figure id=\"attachment_322762\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-322762\" style=\"width: 630px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full-width wp-image-322762\" src=\"https:\/\/cdn.geekwire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/04\/170405-blue-boyle-630x420.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"630\" height=\"420\" srcset=\"https:\/\/cdn.geekwire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/04\/170405-blue-boyle-630x420.jpg 630w, https:\/\/cdn.geekwire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/04\/170405-blue-boyle-768x512.jpg 768w, https:\/\/cdn.geekwire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/04\/170405-blue-boyle-1240x827.jpg 1240w, https:\/\/cdn.geekwire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/04\/170405-blue-boyle.jpg 1500w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 630px) 100vw, 630px\"><figcaption data-nosnippet=\"\" id=\"caption-attachment-322762\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">GeekWire\u2019s Alan Boyle sits in one of the padded seats inside a mock-up of the crew capsule for Blue Origin\u2019s suborbital spaceship. The door of the capsule\u2019s hatch is just to the right of Boyle\u2019s head. (GeekWire Photo \/ Kevin Lisota)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo.&nbsp;\u2013 The seats in Blue Origin\u2019s suborbital&nbsp;spaceship are like a dentist\u2019s chair that\u2019s fully extended, with a big difference. You can&nbsp;float out of this one when weightlessness sets in.<\/p>\n<p>Of course, we couldn\u2019t get the zero-G experience when we tried out the seats in a mock-up of the New Shepard crew capsule, on display here at the 33rd Space Symposium. But we&nbsp;did get a condensed version of the 11-minute flight scenario, from launch to landing.<\/p>\n<p>Our guide for the sit-in was Ariane Cornell, a member of Blue Origin\u2019s strategy and business development team. Five other journalists and I ducked our heads, stepped&nbsp;through the hatch and settled into the six seats placed around the periphery of a cabin that\u2019s about the size and shape of a big igloo.<\/p>\n<p><iframe title=\"Inside look at the Blue Origin New Shepard rocket booster and crew capsule\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/K1H6QwxUTR8?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>The interior was designed for Blue Origin with input from Seattle-based Teague, which also designed the cabin for Boeing\u2019s 787 Dreamliner jet. The overall vibe is similar to what you see in a Dreamliner, right down to the cool-blue mood lighting&nbsp;in the&nbsp;cushioned walls.<\/p>\n<p>Blue Origin\u2019s flight plan calls for six passengers to board the capsule at T-minus-30, strap themselves in and brace themselves for launch. Padding can be added to the seats to accommodate different body shapes. If&nbsp;you\u2019re extra-tall, just bend your legs a little more when&nbsp;you put your feet on the footrests.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe best way here is to take a seat and then swing your legs over,\u201d Cornell told us.<\/p>\n<p>Each of us had a roughly 4-foot-tall window to look through, with a display screen about the size of an Amazon Kindle Fire tablet mounted on the window\u2019s edge. During a real spaceflight, that tablet would display views from external cameras, plus flight data for the passengers\u2019 edification.<\/p>\n<p>A fisheye camera is mounted&nbsp;at the top&nbsp;of the space igloo\u2019s ceiling. In flight, that will provide an internal view, not only for the passengers aboard the autonomously piloted capsule, but for Mission Control as well. If you don\u2019t have your seat belt fastened properly, you\u2019ll get a radioed reminder. Other cameras will be placed strategically around the cabin to take selfies automatically.<\/p>\n<p>Right beneath the fisheye, there\u2019s a dark cylinder that looks like a table for cocktails. But don\u2019t set a drink down on this tabletop: It\u2019s actually the housing for a solid-rocket motor that would fire up to power the capsule away from the booster below in the event of an emergency during ascent. The system was successfully tested last October during an uncrewed flight.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_322764\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-322764\" style=\"width: 630px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full-width wp-image-322764\" src=\"https:\/\/cdn.geekwire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/04\/20170405_Blue_Origin_93-630x945.jpg\" alt=\"Blue Origin New Shepard booster\" width=\"630\" height=\"945\" srcset=\"https:\/\/cdn.geekwire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/04\/20170405_Blue_Origin_93-630x945.jpg 630w, https:\/\/cdn.geekwire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/04\/20170405_Blue_Origin_93.jpg 667w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 630px) 100vw, 630px\"><figcaption data-nosnippet=\"\" id=\"caption-attachment-322764\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Blue Origin\u2019s New Shepard suborbital rocket booster stands on display at the Space symposium. If you look closely at lower left, you can make out five tortoises that have been painted on the rocket \u2013 one tortoise for each trip to space. (GeekWire Photo \/ Kevin Lisota)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>Passengers will feel about 3 G\u2019s of acceleration on the way up, and at the top of the ride, they\u2019ll get about four minutes of zero-G. There\u2019s enough room to float free and do a Superman pose. But when you turn a somersault, be careful not to hit&nbsp;your fellow passengers.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cZero-G etiquette will be part of the training,\u201d Cornell said.<\/p>\n<h4 class=\"callout clearfix\"><strong>Read more:<\/strong> How Jeff Bezos is using Amazon\u2019s success to fuel Blue Origin, a billion dollars at a time<\/h4>\n<p>A countdown displayed in big numbers on your tablet will alert you to get back in your seat for the roller-coaster descent, which can deliver up to 5.5 G\u2019s of acceleration. Parachutes will slow down the 8,000-pound capsule, and just before landing, a burst from the retro-thruster system will take some of the \u201cbump\u201d out of the touchdown.<\/p>\n<p>Commercial service could begin as early as 2018.&nbsp;The ticket price hasn\u2019t yet been set, and it\u2019s too soon to make reservations. But not too soon for Blue Origin to start thinking about repeat customers.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI\u2019m sure, as soon as people go up and they come back down, they\u2019re going to want to do it again,\u201d Cornell said. \u201cAnd we\u2019ll be ready for them.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>GeekWire\u2019s Alan Boyle sits in one of the padded seats inside a mock-up of the crew capsule for Blue Origin\u2019s suborbital spaceship. The door of the capsule\u2019s hatch is just to the right of Boyle\u2019s head. (GeekWire Photo \/ Kevin Lisota) COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo.&nbsp;\u2013 The seats in Blue Origin\u2019s suborbital&nbsp;spaceship are like a dentist\u2019s chair [&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":[509,291,1250,622,493],"class_list":["post-19006","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-blue-origin","tag-commercial-space","tag-new-shepard","tag-space-symposium","tag-space-tourism"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19006"}],"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=19006"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19006\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19006"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19006"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19006"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}