Wednesday, November 25, 2015

Historic Landing of Fully Reusable Rocket

Amazon billionaire Jeff Bezos said his private spaceflight company Blue Origin has successfully launched a rocket and landed it back on Earth -- a feat that could help make space travel more affordable for the masses.

Launching from Texas on Monday, Bezos' New Shepard crew capsule and propulsion module blasted into space with no passengers on board. After reaching its planned test altitude of 329,839 feet, the vessel returned to Earth, landing upright just four and a half feet from its launch pad, according to Blue Origin.

While this week's achievement is being celebrated, Bezos said his company plans to fly the vehicle "many, many times and then when we're completely confident in it, we're going to start using it to take people into space."

Bezos said additional testing should "take another couple of years." When Blue Origin is ready for passengers, Bezos said he wants to travel to space and fulfill a boyhood dream.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

I can't understand why they don't use a parachute for this and use the rocket to soften the landing at the end. I would think it's a lot cheaper to reuse a parachute than to burn fuel...