Hello All,

Today Blue Origin www.blueorigin.com launched their New Shepard suborbital booster and capsule into space and recovered it successfully, marking this vehicle's third trip into space and back (see: http://www.space.com/32453-blue-ori...third-time.html ). Ironically, one of the comments below the article said simply, "Yawn." BUT:

That *is* the whole point. If space flight is ever going to be more than a series of expensive (although scientifically and economically worthwhile, especially where communications and other types of applications spacecraft are concerned) stunts, the process of going up there and coming back must become as routine and safe as air travel. (Due to the greater energies and velocities involved even in suborbital space flight [which make the consequences of even minor anomalies more serious than they are in jetliner travel], it may never be possible to make *reaction*-powered space launches as accident-free as jet flight [the various non-rocket methods might achieve that level of freedom from accidents], but proper design and multiple safety & abort options could make most such accidents exciting stories rather than tales of tragedy.)

__________________
Black Shire--Draft horse in human form, model rocketeer, occasional mystic, and writer, see:
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