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Blue Origin "New Shepherd" Makes It To Space... and Back Again (arstechnica.com)

Posted by timothy on from the spacemark-achievement dept.

Geoffrey.landis writes: Blue Origin's "New Shepherd" suborbital vehicle made its first flight into space (defined as 100 km altitude)... and successfully landed both the capsule (by parachute) and the booster rocket (vertical landing under rocket power). This is the first time that a vehicle has made it into space and had all components fully recovered for reuse since the NASA flights of the X-15 in the 1960s. Check out the videos at various places on the web.

2 of 121 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Please put the word "space" in quotes by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I disagree. The point (and it was clear even in the summary) is that the rocket landed back down. THAT's what was being tested. Granted, they didn't have to take as much propellant with them, but that isn't as big a deal when they were testing the ability to LAND from space.

  2. "The Karman line? More like the LOSER line!" by Pseudonymous+Powers · · Score: 5, Funny

    Billy (age 5): Look, Mommy, I writed a symphony!

    Mom: Wrote, not writed, idiot. Let me see that. Harumph! This is barely a sonata. And no one writes for harpsichord anymore!

    Billy: I wrote it for you! It's pretty, like you are!

    Mom: Pandering, now? Disgusting. And I guess I would have been impressed, if Mozart hadn't beat you to it, by, oh, like, two hundred years!