Proof Of Blue Origin's Successful Space Tourism Business, Fly Six People Back To Space

Blue Origin recently made its fifth tourist flight, sending a crew of six to the edge of space. (photo: doc. blue origin)

JAKARTA - Space company Blue Origin recently made its fifth tourist flight, sending a crew of six to the edge of space and back out of West Texas.

Again, this is a flight with no major celebrities on board, as the company intends to make such a quick outing to space relatively routine.

The flight using a New Shepard rocket called the NS-21 comes just two months after Blue Origin's last tourist trip on March 31.

The New Shepard rocket was filled by engineer and investor Evan Dick who was one of the crew on last December's flight, known as NS-19. And he flew again on the NS-21, becoming the first New Shepard passenger to repeat.

There's also Katya Echazarreta, a 26-year-old science communicator who became the first Mexican-born woman, and the youngest American woman, to ever reach space.

The Echazarreta Chair is sponsored by the non-profit Space For Humanity, which seeks to expand our species' access to outer space. He is the first Space For Humanity citizen astronaut to reach the last frontier of space.

The other four passengers on the NS-21 were civil production engineer Victor Correa Hespanha, who became the second Brazilian to reach space, then Jaison Robinson, who was a finalist on the TV show Survivor: Samoa in 2009 and later founded a company called Dream Variations Ventures.

There was also Victor Vescovo, an accomplished explorer who co-founded the private equity investment firm Insight Equity and finally Hamish Harding, chairman of jet-business brokerage Action Aviation, who is also an explorer and adventurer who holds several aviation world records.

Launch Space, Monday, June 6, starting at 09:25 EDT (1325 GMT) on Saturday, June 4. New Shepard took off from Launch Site One, the company's West Texas facility, about 25 miles (40 kilometers) from the city of Van Horn.

It all took just 10 minutes, when the New Shepard capsule and its six passengers landed under a parachute. During the flight, the crew reached a peak of 347,538 feet (106 kilometers) above ground level.

New Shepard consists of a rocket and a capsule, both of which are reusable. NS-21. It was the company's second crewed flight this year, after the NS-20. The other three manned New Shepard flights took place in July, October and December last year, respectively.

Additionally, Apollo astronaut Charlie Duke, who flew on the Apollo 16 mission 50 years ago and who served as a capsule communicator on Apollo 11, sat at mission control before the flight to wish the NS-21 crew well.

"Congratulations on the flight you are about to embark on. I know you will have an exciting adventure, as I did 50 years ago," said Duke.

"Have a nice trip and I can't wait to see you when you get back. Good luck," he added.