News: 0178558548

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With Flight of Six More Tourists to Space, Blue Origin Carries 75th Passenger (space.com)

(Monday August 04, 2025 @03:54AM (EditorDavid) from the filling-the-space dept.)


"Jeff Bezos' Blue Origin launched a crypto billionaire and five other people to the final frontier on Sunday," [1]reports Space.com :

> The mission — known as NS-34, because it was the 34th overall flight of Blue Origin's New Shepard vehicle — lifted off from the company's West Texas spaceport at 8:43 a.m. EDT (1243 GMT; 7:43 a.m. local time in West Texas).

>

> The highest-profile NS-34 passenger was Justin Sun, a 34-year-old billionaire who founded the blockchain platform Tron. In June 2021, Sun won an auction for a seat aboard the first-ever crewed flight of New Shepard, plunking down $28 million. [Sun was unable to take that flight due to a scheduling conflict, but Blue Origin says "the proceeds from the $28 million bid benefitted 19 space-focused charities"...] The people flying with Sun on Sunday were Arvinder (Arvi) Singh Bahal, an Indian-born American real estate investor and adventurer; Turkish businessman and photographer Gökhan Erdem; Deborah Martorell, a journalist and meteorologist from Puerto Rico; Englishman Lionel Pitchford, who has run an orphanage in Nepal for three decades; and American entrepreneur James (J.D.) Russell... All six passengers were spaceflight rookies except Russell, who flew on Blue Origin's NS-28 mission in November 2024.

>

> NS-34 was the 14th human spaceflight to date for New Shepard, which consists of a rocket topped by a crew capsule. Both of these elements are reusable; the rocket comes back to Earth for a vertical, powered touchdown like those performed by SpaceX's Falcon 9 rockets, and the capsule lands softly under parachutes. Each New Shepard flight lasts 10 to 12 minutes from liftoff to capsule touchdown.

"New Shepard has now flown 75 people into space," Blue Origin [2]said in a statement , "including five people who have flown twice."



[1] https://www.space.com/space-exploration/private-spaceflight/blue-origin-launch-crypto-billionaire-justin-sun-launch-suborbital-space-ns-34

[2] https://www.blueorigin.com/news/new-shepard-ns-34-mission



BLUE PENIS vs SPACEX (Score:3, Insightful)

by gavron ( 1300111 )

The comparison is inevitable and made by ever media outlet commenting on the launches. SpaceX actually accomplishes things (orbital insertion, LEO sats, military missions, CRS and Crew missions to the ISS among them. Blue Penis has a cartoon of a guy in a big cowboy hat pretending to be another cartoon guy, while taking people on a long-ride to absolutely nothing.

If you'd like to experience near weightlessness you can pay $28M to win a seat at an auction at fly to "the edge of space", or buy $300 worth of SCUBA gear, leave out most of the weight in your BCD, and enjoy the same. The sights are better.

Why people pander to this effort is beyond me. All it does is waste a lot of people's time, money, and fuel to get these rich clowns up to "almost nothing" for "almost no time" where they accomplish "nothing" and are merely passengers on an almost-space vessel -- not astronauts. That's been discussed on /. and TechDirt and Wired and others before so As the US Secretary of Transportation put it in April 2025:

“The crew who flew to space this week on an automated flight by Blue Origin were brave and glam, but you cannot identify as an astronaut,” continued Duffy's post about the proper terminology regarding what they achieved. “They do not meet the FAA astronaut criteria

Useless, pointless, expensive. Please, compare that to SpaceX, ULA, or the Chinese and other countries' programs.

Darn (Score:3)

by SeaFox ( 739806 )

[1]Almost made it through the summer. [slashdot.org] At least some charities benefited here.

[1] https://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=23731420&cid=65484554

Re: (Score:2)

by 93 Escort Wagon ( 326346 )

> [1]Almost made it through the summer. [slashdot.org]

What are you talking about? We're not even half-way through the season...

[1] https://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=23731420&cid=65484554

Re: (Score:2)

by SeaFox ( 739806 )

> What are you talking about? We're not even half-way through the season...

Not sure if global warming joke...

or missed Labor Day is September 1st. /SuspiciousFry.jpg

Who cares?? (Score:2)

by Barsteward ( 969998 )

this is a tabloid subject

America may be unique in being a country which has leapt from barbarism
to decadence without touching civilization.
-- John O'Hara