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Business

Blue Origin Plans Its Own Space Station, ‘Orbital Reef’

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Illustration: Blue Origin

Blue Origin has big plans for its own space station, a project called Orbital Reef that would be “mixed use business park” and the “premier commercial destination in low Earth orbit.” Sort of like a cruise ship that fits 10 people and doesn’t travel to multiple destinations. It’ll be a little smaller than the International Space Station, Blue Origin says, and would open for business between 2025 and 2030.

Ten people. That’s still higher than eight people, the total number of people Blue Origin has carried just beyond the minimum threshold of space before turning back around after a minute or so. That’s also far less than 1 trillion people, the number Jeff Bezos anticipates will eventually live in tremendous space colonies that he’s described as the off-world structure in Interstellar.

To make it happen, Blue Origin is partnering with various companies—primarily Sierra Space, a space habitat corporation that’ll provide the Large Integrated Flexible Environment (LIFE) module, the human living quarters with three floors, beds, a kitchen, and an astro garden, as well as a spaceplane to shuttle passengers and cargo to and from Earth. Blue Origin would handle the launch system, utility systems, and core modules. Other parts are to be provided by Boeing, Redwire Space, and Genesis Engineering Solutions. Arizona State University will lead a “global consortium” of over 12 academic institutions, to advise on research and education.

The vaguely worded press release is a luxury tourism ad, promising “human-centered space architecture with world-class services and amenities that is inspiring, practical, and safe.” There will be, according to Brent Sherwood, senior vice president of Advanced Development Programs for Blue Origin, “a vibrant business ecosystem” that’ll generate “new discoveries, new products, new entertainments, and global awareness.”

In an email, Blue Origin declined to expand on what amenities or “new entertainments” entail. But a Sierra Space spokesperson elaborated: “We are creating a mixed-used business park. This means we are opening space business to new tenants and participants, creating a vibrant economy in space with new people living and working in space.” Target customers would include “manufacturing, space tourism, pharmaceuticals and any company who can see benefits of being in zero gravity,” the spokesperson said.

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They said that it’s to be determined whether researchers will get lower rates for tickets.

So, fine to ignore until it’s large enough that we can’t. For now, here’s a cool rendering:

Illustration: Blue Origin

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Business

Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin unveils Ocean Reef private space station

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A rendering of the “Ocean Reef” space station in orbit.

Blue Origin

WASHINGTON – Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin on Monday unveiled its plan for a private space station called “Orbital Reef,” which it will build in partnership with multiple space companies and expects to deploy between 2025 and 2030.

Blue Origin describes the Orbital Reef station, which would be habitable for up to 10 people, as a “mixed use business park” in space – as well as capable of “exotic hospitality” for space tourists.

Ocean Reef is designed to have almost as much habitable volume as the International Space Station.

The company’s primary partner for the station is Sierra Space, a subsidiary of aerospace contractor Sierra Nevada Corporation, with the team also including Boeing, Redwire Space, and Genesis Engineering.

“We’re just beginning to understand the tremendous implications that microgravity research, development and manufacturing can mean, for not only for exploring the universe and making discoveries but improving life on Earth,” Redwire executive vice president Mike Gold told CNBC.

Shares of Redwire Space were halted temporarily by the New York Stock Exchange after surging following the announcement. The stock jumped as much as 40% in trading from its previous close of $12.16.

Blue Origin will provide the space station’s “utility systems” and “core modules,” and plans to use its New Glenn rocket to launch Ocean Reef.

Sierra Space is contributing its LIFE habitat (Large Integrated Flexible Environment; essentially an inflatable space station module), and plans to use its Dream Chaser spacecraft to transport cargo and crew to-and-from the station.

Redwire Space, which went public in September, will run the station’s payload operations and build deployable structures. Redwire also plans to use Orbital Reef for microgravity research, development and manufacturing.

Boeing will build Ocean Reef’s science-focused module and run the station’s operations, as well as conduct maintenance engineering. The aerospace giant also plans to utilize its Starliner capsule for transporting crew and cargo to the station.

Genesis Engineering will contribute its “Single Person Spacecraft” system, which the company describes as an alternative to a spacesuit.

In a conference call with reporters, executives representing the companies of the team declined to specify how much each expect to invest in Orbital Reef.

Blue Origin vice president Brent Sherwood said the team is not going to give “a specific number” on how much the Ocean Reef space station will cost, adding that the financial numbers are commercially sensitive.

Bezos’ company has been looking at building a space station for more than a year, as CNBC previously reported, and earlier this month added a number of job postings for its “Orbital Destinations” team.

Bezos’ vision: Living and working in space

Founder, Chairman, CEO and President of Amazon Jeff Bezos gives a thumbs up as he speaks during an event about Blue Origin’s space exploration plans in Washington, U.S., May 9, 2019.

Clodagh Kilcoyne | Reuters

Orbital Reef fits squarely at the center of Bezos’ vision for Blue Origin, which is to get to where “millions of people are living and working in space to benefit Earth,” especially by moving “industries that stress Earth into space.”

Bezos has personally increased his involvement at Blue Origin, after he stepped down as the CEO of Amazon this summer. While the company has had success with its suborbital New Shepard rocket, having flown two successful crewed flights to date, Blue Origin has come under scrutiny due to soaring employee turnover and allegations of safety issues, as well as a “toxic” work culture, by former employees.

Blue Origin has teamed up with other major space companies before, having partnered with Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman and Draper to build a crewed lunar lander for NASA’s HLS program.

However, while the Blue Origin-led team won a $579 million award for early development, it lost the following $2.9 billion contract to Elon Musk’s SpaceX earlier this year. Blue Origin has since taken NASA to court, filing a lawsuit against the space agency to reverse the lunar lander award.

Space station race heating up

Blue Origin intends to bid for one of NASA’s expected contracts for the “Commercial LEO Destinations” program, but Bezos’ company is not alone. NASA director of commercial spaceflight, Phil McAlister told CNBC last month that the program “received roughly about a dozen proposals” from a variety of companies for contracts.

With NASA planning to retire the International Space Station by the end of the decade, the CLD program represents an effort to turn to private companies for new space stations – with the space agency expecting to save more than $1 billion annually as a result.

“We are in a second golden age of space exploration and development,” Redwire’s Gold said.

Last week, another private space station was announced by a separate team of companies: Nanoracks, Voyager Space, and Lockheed Martin are building a station called Starlab, which plans to be operational by 2027.

Starlab is designed to be crewed by up to four astronauts, with about a third of the volume of the ISS.

Concept art of a “Starlab” space station

Nanoracks

NASA has already begun funding the ambitions of one company under a separate contract from the CLD program, having awarded Axiom Space with $140 million. Axiom plans to build modules that will connect to the ISS. When the ISS retires, Axiom then would detach its modules and turn it into a free-flying space station.

An illustration of three of the company’s modules connected to the International Space Station.

Axiom Space

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Technology

Valkyrae’s blue light skincare line met with controversy from streamers, experts

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“I can’t stop crying,” Rachell “Valkyrae” Hofstetter, YouTube’s most popular female streamer, wrote in a now-deleted tweet this week after announcing her new skin care line. The collection, RFLCT, promised to mitigate “blue light pollution” from computer and phone screens. “This has been a long journey with my team,” she added. “This is just the beginning.” Almost immediately, however, viewers and other streamers expressed skepticism: Blue light pollution, they said, is not a real problem and could be used to “scam” impressionable young viewers into buying products that don’t work as advertised. Experts appear to agree: At the very least, there’s not enough credible research on the subject to warrant product lines.



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Entertainment

Lana Del Rey Releases New Album Blue Banisters: Listen

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Lana Del Rey has released her new album Blue Banisters. The LP is the singer and songwriter’s second album of the year, following March’s Chemtrails Over the Country Club. Listen to it below. (Pitchfork earns a commission from purchases made through affiliate links on our site.)

A few weeks after announcing an as-yet-unreleased LP titled Rock Candy Sweet, Lana Del Rey announced another new album, titled Blue Banisters. In May, she shared three new songs, describing them as “buzz tracks” in anticipation of a new record: “Blue Banisters,” “Text Book,” and “Wildflower Wildflower.” She later shared another new track titled “Arcadia.” Last summer, Del Rey released an audiobook version of her poetry collection Violet Bent Backwards Over the Grass.

Read Pitchfork’s review of Lana Del Rey’s Blue Banisters.

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Entertainment

William Shatner claps back at George Takei’s body-shaming comments following Blue Origin flight: ‘Don’t hate’

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William Shatner had a sassy response to his “Star Trek co-star George Takei, who mocked the 90-year-old actor’s body shape amid his historic flight to space this week.

Taking to Twitter on Friday night, Shatner accused Takei of only becoming relevant when he name-checks him.

“Don’t hate George. The only time he gets press is when he talks bad about me,” Shatner’s tweet reads.

It continues: “He claims 50+ years ago I took away a camera angle that denied him 30 more seconds of prime time TV. I’m giving it back to him now by letting him spew his hatred for the world to see! Bill the [pig emoji].”

The latest development took place this week when Takei mocked Shatner’s fitness amid his flight on Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin. 

“He’s boldly going where other people have gone before,” snarked Takei, 84, to Page Six when asked about Shatner making history as the oldest person to ever go to space.

“He’s a guinea pig, 90 years old and it’s important to find out what happens,” Takei added while at the opening of “Thoughts of a Colored Man” on Wednesday night. 

“So 90 years old is going to show a great deal more on the wear and tear on the human body, so he’ll be a good specimen to study. Although he’s not the fittest specimen of 90 years old, so he’ll be a specimen that’s unfit!” 

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The actors have famously feuded for years in the public arena. Takei has accused Shatner of ignoring him on set as well as changing up the script for “Star Trek V” so that Takei’s character would not receive command of a spaceship.

The two ‘Star Trek’ stars have famously squabbled for years.
(Mario Tama/Tommaso Boddi)

Takei has also slammed the “T.J. Hooker” star as “very self-centered.” 

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Blue Origin vice president of mission and flight operations Audrey Powers (L) walks with Star Trek actor William Shatner to a media availability on the landing pad of Blue Origin’s New Shepard after they flew into space on October 13, 2021 near Van Horn, Texas. 
(Mario Tama/Getty Images)

Shatner has taken shots at Takei too. He once claimed there’s something Takei is “festering, and it makes him unhappy that he takes it out on me.” He called Takei’s public lambasting of him “sad.”

The 90-year-old actor joined Blue Origin Vice President of New Shepard Mission and Flight Operations Audrey Powers as well as Dr. Chris Boshuizen and Glen de Vries as they blasted off on the aerospace company’s latest suborbital spaceflight on Wednesday. 

Fox News’ Tyler McCarthy contributed to this report.

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Entertainment

Why Celebrities Disapprove of William Shatner’s Blue Origin Space Ride

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“Star Trek” actor William Shatner describes G Forces as he speaks to the press at the New Shepard rocket landing pad on October 13, 2021, in the West Texas region, 25 miles (40kms) north of Van Horn. PATRICK T. FALLON/AFP via Getty Images

Star Trek star William Shatner made history Wednesday, becoming the oldest person to travel to space aboard a Blue Origin New Shepard rocket. The 90-year-old actor, along with three Blue Origin employees, blasted off from a launch pad in west Texas to 66 miles in the sky in a space ride that lasted about ten minutes.

Shatner’s accomplishment has drawn unexpected criticism from his celebrity circle, from Hollywood to Buckingham Palace.

In an interview with BBC aired Thursday, Prince William said he has “absolutely no interest” in going to space, largely because there’s a “fundamental question” over the carbon cost of space flights.

“We need some of the world’s greatest brains and minds fixed on trying to repair this planet, not trying to find the next place to go and live,” the Duke of Cambridge told BBC Newscast’s Adam Fleming when asked what he thought of the ongoing billionaire space race and the hype of space tourism.

“It really is quite crucial to be focusing on this [planet] rather than giving up and heading out into space to try and think of solutions for the future,” the duke added.

Prince William gave the interview ahead of the first Earthshot Prize, named in reference to the “moonshot” ambition of 1960s America. The prize is set up to reward solutions to climate change and environmental issues.

Shatner also got roasted by his Star Trek co-star George Takei, a longtime foe, who called his former on-screen captain an “unfit guinea pig” for space tourism.

“He’s boldly going where other people have gone before,” Takei, 84, told Page Six on Wednesday after the Blue Origin crew landed. “So 90 years old is going to show a great deal more on the wear and tear on the human body, so he’ll be a good specimen to study. Although he’s not the fittest specimen of 90 years old, so he’ll be a specimen that’s unfit!”

Shatner shot back right away, Page Six reported, claiming that “there’s a psychosis there … There must be something else inside George that is festering, and it makes him unhappy that he takes it out on me…I feel nothing but pity for him.”

He also responded to Prince William’s disapproval of space tourism in an interview with Entertainment Tonight on Thursday, saying that the prince “got the wrong idea.”

“The idea here is not to go, ‘Yeah, look at me. I’m in space,’” Shatner said. “The prince is missing the point. The point is these are the baby steps to show people [that] it’s very practical. You can send somebody like me up into space.”

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World

‘Sophisticated’: ancient faeces shows humans enjoyed beer and blue cheese 2,700 years ago | Anthropology

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It’s no secret that beer and blue cheese go hand in hand – but a new study reveals how deep their roots run in Europe, where workers at a salt mine in Austria were gorging on both up to 2,700 years ago.

Scientists made the discovery by analysing samples of human excrement found at the heart of the Hallstatt mine in the Austrian Alps.

Frank Maixner, a microbiologist at the Eurac Research Institute in Bolzano, Italy, who was the lead author of the report, said he was surprised to learn salt miners more than two millennia ago were advanced enough to “use fermentation intentionally.”

“This is very sophisticated in my opinion,” Maixner said. “This is something I did not expect at that time.”

The finding was the earliest evidence to date of cheese ripening in Europe, according to researchers.

And while alcohol consumption is certainly well documented in older writings and archaeological evidence, the salt miners’ faeces contained the first molecular evidence of beer consumption on the continent at that time.

“It is becoming increasingly clear that not only were prehistoric culinary practices sophisticated, but also that complex processed foodstuffs as well as the technique of fermentation have held a prominent role in our early food history,” Kerstin Kowarik, of the Museum of Natural History Vienna, said.

The town of Hallstatt, a Unesco World Heritage Site, has been used for salt production for more than 3,000 years.

The community “is a very particular place, it’s located in the Alps, in the middle of nowhere,” Maixner said. “The whole community worked and lived from this mine.”

The miners spent their entire days there, working, eating and going to the bathroom in the mine.

It is thanks to the constant temperature of around 8C (46F) and the high concentration of salt at the mine that the miners’ faeces were preserved particularly well.

Researchers analysed four samples: one dating back to the bronze age, two from the iron age and one from the 18th century.

One of them, about 2,700 years old, was found to contain two fungi, Penicillium roqueforti and Saccharomyces cerevisiae. Both are known today for their use in food making.

“The Hallstatt miners seem to have intentionally applied food fermentation technologies with microorganisms which are still nowadays used in the food industry,” Maixner said.

The researchers also studied the miners’ diet, which consisted mainly of cereals, some fruit, and beans and meats as the source of protein.

“The diet was exactly what these miners needed, in my opinion,” Maixner said. “It’s clearly balanced and you have all major components you need.”

The main difference with today’s menus is the degree of food processing, which was very low at the time. The bronze and iron age miners used whole grains, suggesting the consumption of some kind of porridge. For the 18th-century miners, the grains appeared ground, indicating they ate bread or cookies.

One of the study’s other findings was the composition of the miners’ microbiota, or the set of bacteria present in their bodies.

In the four samples studied, the microbiota were very similar to that of modern non-western populations, which tend to have a more traditional lifestyle.

This suggests a “recent shift” in the microbiota of industrialised humans, “probably due to modern lifestyle, diet, or medical advances,” the study said.

However, microbiota are often linked to different modern diseases, Maixner said. According to him, determining when exactly this change occurred could help scientists understand what caused it.

The study was published in the journal Current Biology on Wednesday.

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Business

In a Blue Origin Rocket, William Shatner Finally Goes to Space

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Mr. Bezos, who has said he was inspired by “Star Trek” as a boy, listened, still as a statue. He may have been giving Mr. Shatner some space, but it was a sharp contrast to his appearance after his own brief spaceflight in July, when he was aboard the same spacecraft. Then, Mr. Bezos held forth from a stage, rousing condemnation from critics of the vast company he founded as he thanked Amazon’s employees and customers for making it possible for him to finance his private space venture.

Mr. Shatner shared the capsule on Wednesday with three other passengers: Audrey Powers, a Blue Origin vice president who oversees New Shepard operations, and two paying customers: Chris Boshuizen, a co-founder of the Earth-observation company Planet Labs, and Glen de Vries, a co-founder of a company that builds software for clinical researchers.

The launch Wednesday morning was pushed back by roughly an hour by two pauses to the launch countdown — caused in part by extra checks to the spacecraft and winds near its launchpad. The quartet was driven in electric pickup trucks to Blue Origin’s launchpad, roughly an hour before liftoff, flanked by Mr. Bezos and company employees.

For a moment, it appeared Mr. Bezos, dressed in a flight suit like the one he wore in July, would join them in flying to space. But he closed the hatch door before leaving the pad, sending the crew on their journey.

The rocket lifted off at 9:49 a.m. Central time, ascending nearly as fast as a speeding bullet at 2,235 miles per hour and sending the crew some 65.8 miles high. The whole trip lasted 10 minutes, 17 seconds, and gave the four passengers about four minutes of weightlessness.

Mr. Boshuizen, talking to reporters after the flight, likened the crew’s entry into space to a stone hitting the surface of a lake. “I was trying to smile but my jaw was pushed back in my head,” he said.

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Business

William Shatner set to launch on Blue Origin New Shepard flight

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More than 50 years after he debuted as the beloved Capt. James T. Kirk in the original series of “Star Trek,” William Shatner is set to boldly go to the edge of space.

The 90-year-old actor is scheduled to launch Wednesday aboard a rocket and capsule developed by Blue Origin, the private spaceflight company founded by Amazon founder Jeff Bezos. If successful, the joyride will make Shatner the oldest person to reach space.

“I’ve heard about space for a long time now,” he said in a statement released earlier this month. “I’m taking the opportunity to see it for myself. What a miracle.”

Shatner and three other crew members — Audrey Powers, Blue Origin’s vice president of mission and flight operations, and two paying customers, Glen de Vries and Chris Boshuizen — will ride Blue Origin’s New Shepard rocket and capsule to the edge of space. Liftoff is scheduled to occur at 10 a.m. ET and the flight is expected to last roughly 10 minutes.

Chris Boshuizen, William Shatner, Audrey Powers and Glen de Vries are scheduled to launch Oct. 13, 2021.Blue Origin / via AP

In an interview last week with NBC’s “TODAY” show, Shatner spoke about his anticipation for the upcoming flight.

“I’m going to see the vastness of space and the extraordinary miracle of our Earth and how fragile it is compared to the forces at work in the universe — that’s really what I’m looking for,” he said.

Shatner’s trip will be Blue Origin’s second launch of an all-civilian crew. The company’s inaugural flight in July was a high-profile and high-stakes event, with Bezos, his brother and two other passengers onboard.

The New Shepard rocket and capsule are designed for suborbital jaunts, which don’t actually enter into orbit around Earth but rather fly to the edge of space, at an altitude of more than 65 miles, where passengers can experience around four minutes of weightlessness.

Wednesday’s flight will launch from a site in west Texas, southeast of El Paso. After liftoff, the rocket will accelerate toward space at three times the speed of sound. At an altitude of 250,000 feet, the New Shepard capsule will separate, taking Shatner and his crew members to the edge of space.

The craft will then descend under parachutes and land again in the Texas desert.

Shatner’s expedition is the latest in what has been a recent flurry of space tourism flights. Nine days before Bezos flew to the edge of space, British billionaire Richard Branson completed his own suborbital joyride, riding aboard a rocket-powered vehicle developed by his own space tourism company, Virgin Galactic.

Neither Blue Origin nor Virgin Galactic have announced final pricing for their suborbital flights, but tickets are expected to cost several hundreds of thousands of dollars.

And in addition to trips to the edge of space, people with deep pockets may soon be able to pay for orbital experiences and more prolonged stays in microgravity.

Last month, SpaceX, the spaceflight company founded by billionaire Elon Musk, launched four private passengers into orbit around Earth on a three-day expedition. That flight made history as the first orbital launch with an all-civilian crew.

SpaceX is also preparing to launch three private passengers who each paid $55 million to the International Space Station in early 2022.

Denise Chow is a reporter for NBC News Science focused on general science and climate change.

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Business

William Shatner rockets to space with Blue Origin: How to watch live

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The crew of Blue Origin’s NS18 mission.


Blue Origin

Blue Origin plans to make its second crewed flight ever on Wednesday, this time carrying the alter ego of one of the most iconic space travelers ever.

The first flight of a New Shepard rocket
with humans aboard launched July 20 and carried company founder and mega-rich guy Jeff Bezos, his brother Mark, aviation pioneer Wally Funk and student Oliver Daemen on a quick trip to space. This time around the headline passenger is William Shatner, the 90-year-old veteran actor best known for playing James T. Kirk, captain of the Starship Enterprise in the Star Trek universe.

“I’ve heard about space for a long time now,” Shatner said cheekily in a statement last week. “I’m taking the opportunity to see it for myself. What a miracle.”

The mission, dubbed NS18, is set to liftoff at 6:30 a.m. PT (8:30 a.m. CT) Wednesday, Oct. 13. Live coverage from Blue Origin is set to begin 90 minutes earlier and will be streamed live. CNET’s livestreamed coverage of the launch is below.

Shatner will be joined in the New Shepard capsule by Chris Boshuizen, former NASA engineer and co-founder of satellite imaging company Planet Labs; Glen de Vries, an entrepreneur and executive with French software company Dassault Systemes; and Blue Origin’s vice president of mission and flight operations, Audrey Powers.

The quartet will blast off from Blue Origin’s west Texas launch facility Wednesday morning. A few minutes into the flight, the capsule will separate from the booster and continue on to suborbital space, where the crew will get to experience weightlessness and an epic view of Earth before reentering the atmosphere for a parachute-assisted soft landing in the desert. The whole experience should last around 15 minutes. 

After separation, the New Shepard booster returns for an autonomous landing on the ground to be reused in the future. 


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Shatner, who has also released over 10 albums as a recording artist, says he plans to write a song about the experience for his next album. 

“I want to write about my love of Earth,” Shatner said in an interview posted to Twitter.

The launch was originally scheduled for Tuesday, Oct. 12, but got bumped to the following day because of winds in the forecast.

“The mission operations team confirmed the vehicle has met all mission requirements and astronauts began their training today,” Blue Origin said in a statement Sunday morning. “Weather is the only gating factor for the launch window.”

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