![]() The International Space Station is 4 times higher than that. Suborbital space is about 62 miles above Earth, which is the maximum heights New Shepard can reach. That's something that must be done to dock with the ISS and to get to the moon. New Shepard is designed for what is called suborbital spaceflight, where the rocket reaches space but is not high enough or fast enough to place its spacecraft into a complete orbit around the Earth. (SpaceX is in agreement with NASA to launch astronauts in space by 2017. The benefit of a single-stage rocket is that it is smaller, lighter, cheaper to build, cheaper to launch, and less complicated to fly.ĭespite these advantages, they are also the reason Blue Origin's latest rocket will not be transporting supplies or astronauts to the ISS. The reason the Falcon 9 can produce so much more power is because it's a two-stage rocket - meaning it has two parts - whereas Blue Origin's is a single-stage rocket. This brings us to why the two company's space launch vehicles look so different, because they're designed for two very different purposes. Moreover, you can buy a ticket to ride on one of Blue Origin's vehicles, but you have to be an astronaut to ride with SpaceX. And they make their money by gaining contracts with NASA to supply the International Space Station and by securing contracts with private companies to launch satellites into orbit. SpaceX's Dragon 2 spacecraft, on the other hand, is designed to ferry seven astronauts at a time to and from the International Space Station by late 2017. This business that Blue Origin is leading is called commercial spaceflight. The ride is for entertainment purposes and therefore not exclusively for astronauts. The vehicle is designed to eventually ferry six people to space, where they can experience weightlessness for 10 minutes before returning to Earth. Blue Origin's space capsule test flight in April, 2015.īlue Origin's New Shepard vehicle includes a booster rocket with a space vehicle on top.
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