One of the tourists is Ed Dwight, a retired US Air Force captain selected by President John F. Kennedy in 1961 to be the nation's first Black astronaut candidate.
Deblina Chakraborty and Jackie WattlesBlue Origin's tourism rocket is poised to launch passengers to the edge of space for the first time in nearly two years, ending a hiatus prompted by a failed uncrewed test flight.The New Shepard rocket and capsule are set to lift off during a window that opens at 8:30 a.m. CT from Blue Origin's facilities on a private ranch in West Texas. A livestream of the mission, called NS-25, will begin at about 7:50 a.m.
"I had no intention of being an astronaut. That was the last thing on my bucket list," Dwight said in the documentary. "But once I was given the challenge, then everything changes." And at the peak of the flight, passengers will experience a few minutes of weightlessness and striking views of Earth through the cabin windows.
Blue Origin later revealed that the cause of the failure was a problem with the engine nozzle, a large cone that directs the flaming exhaust at the rocket's bottom. Onboard computers accurately detected the failure and shut the engine down, according to the company. During a December interview with podcaster Lex Fridman, Bezos said the escape system that jettisoned the capsule to safety is the most difficult piece of engineering in the entire rocket - but "it is the reason that I am comfortable letting anyone go on New Shepard."
To fix the issue, Blue Origin said it implemented "design changes to the combustion chamber" - the area of the engine where fuel explosively mixes with oxidizer - and adjusted "operating parameters," or the data that the company uses to model safe flights.
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