Blue Origin Flies Thrill Seekers to Space, Including Oldest Astronaut

Jeff Bezos-backed Blue Origin resumes its flights to the edge of space, carrying six people seated in a capsule atop the New Shepard rocket, ending a near two-year pause of crewed operations following a 2022 mission failure in Van Horn, Texas, US May 19, 2024 in a still image from video.  Blue Origin/Handout via REUTERS
Jeff Bezos-backed Blue Origin resumes its flights to the edge of space, carrying six people seated in a capsule atop the New Shepard rocket, ending a near two-year pause of crewed operations following a 2022 mission failure in Van Horn, Texas, US May 19, 2024 in a still image from video. Blue Origin/Handout via REUTERS
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Blue Origin Flies Thrill Seekers to Space, Including Oldest Astronaut

Jeff Bezos-backed Blue Origin resumes its flights to the edge of space, carrying six people seated in a capsule atop the New Shepard rocket, ending a near two-year pause of crewed operations following a 2022 mission failure in Van Horn, Texas, US May 19, 2024 in a still image from video.  Blue Origin/Handout via REUTERS
Jeff Bezos-backed Blue Origin resumes its flights to the edge of space, carrying six people seated in a capsule atop the New Shepard rocket, ending a near two-year pause of crewed operations following a 2022 mission failure in Van Horn, Texas, US May 19, 2024 in a still image from video. Blue Origin/Handout via REUTERS

After a nearly two-year hiatus, Blue Origin flew adventurers to space on Sunday, including a former Air Force pilot who was denied the chance to be the United States' first Black astronaut decades ago, Agence France Presse reported.

It was the first crewed launch for the enterprise owned and founded by Amazon billionaire Jeff Bezos since a rocket mishap in 2022 left rival Virgin Galactic as the sole operator in the fledgling suborbital tourism market.

Six people including the sculptor Ed Dwight, who was on track to become NASA's first astronaut of color in the 1960s before being controversially spurned, launched around 09:36 am local time (1436 GMT) from the Launch Site One base in west Texas, a live feed showed.

Dwight -- at 90 years, 8 months and 10 days -- became the oldest person to ever go to space.

"This is a life-changing experience, everybody needs to do this," he exclaimed after the flight.

"I thought I didn't really need this in my life," he added, reflecting on his omission from the astronaut corps, which was his first experience with failure as a young man.

"But I lied," he added, with a hearty laugh.

"You take everything you imagined, you multiply it roughly by 100 and you are still quite far from reality," crewmate and French entrepreneur Sylvain Chiron told AFP.

"I'm not quite back down to Earth yet."

Mission NS-25 is the seventh human flight for Blue Origin, which sees short jaunts on the New Shepard suborbital vehicle as a stepping stone to greater ambitions, including the development of a full-fledged heavy rocket and lunar lander.

Including Sunday's crew, the company has flown 37 people aboard New Shepard -- a small, fully reusable rocket system named after Alan Shepard, the first American in space.

The program encountered a setback when a New Shepard rocket caught fire shortly after launch on September 12, 2022, even though the uncrewed capsule ejected safely.

A federal investigation revealed an overheating engine nozzle was at fault. Blue Origin took corrective steps and carried out a successful uncrewed launch in December 2023, paving the way for Sunday's mission.

After liftoff, the sleek and roomy capsule separated from the booster, which produces zero carbon emissions. The rocket performed a precision vertical landing.

As the spaceship soared beyond the Karman Line, the internationally recognized boundary of space 62 miles (100 kilometers) above sea level, passengers had the chance to marvel at the Earth's curvature and unbuckle their seatbelts to float -- or somersault -- during a few minutes of weightlessness.

The capsule then reentered the atmosphere, deploying its parachutes for a desert landing in a puff of sand. However, one of the three parachutes failed to fully inflate, possibly resulting in a harder landing than expected.

Asked for comment, a Blue Origin spokesperson stressed its system was designed with multiple fail-safes.

"The capsule is designed to safely land with one parachute. The overall mission was a success, and all of our astronauts are excited to be back," the spokesperson said.

In all, the mission lasted around 11 minutes roundtrip.

Bezos himself was on the program's first crewed flight in 2021. A few months later, Star Trek's William Shatner blurred the lines between science fiction and reality when he became the world's oldest astronaut at age 90, decades after he first played a space traveler.

Dwight, who was almost two months older than Shatner at the time of his flight, became only the second nonagenarian to venture beyond Earth.

Astronaut John Glenn remains the oldest to orbit the planet, a feat he achieved in 1998 at the age of 77 aboard the Space Shuttle Discovery.

Sunday's mission finally gave Dwight the chance he was denied decades ago.

He was an elite test pilot when he was appointed by then-president John F Kennedy to join a highly competitive Air Force program known as a Pathway for the astronaut corps, but was ultimately not picked.

He left the military in 1966, citing the strain of racial politics, before dedicating his life to telling Black history through sculpture. His art, displayed around the country, includes iconic figures like Martin Luther King Jr, Frederick Douglass, Harriet Tubman, and more.



Greece's 'Instagram Island' Santorini nears Saturation Point

Tourists queue as they wait to take a picture from one of the balconies. Aris Oikonomou / AFP
Tourists queue as they wait to take a picture from one of the balconies. Aris Oikonomou / AFP
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Greece's 'Instagram Island' Santorini nears Saturation Point

Tourists queue as they wait to take a picture from one of the balconies. Aris Oikonomou / AFP
Tourists queue as they wait to take a picture from one of the balconies. Aris Oikonomou / AFP

One of the most enduring images of Greece's summer travel brand is the world-famous sunset on Santorini Island, framed by sea-blue church domes on a jagged cliff high above a volcanic caldera.
This scene has inspired millions of fridge magnets, posters, and souvenirs -- and now the queue to reach the viewing spot in the clifftop village of Oia can take more than 20 minutes, said AFP.
Santorini is a key stopover of the Greek cruise experience. But with parts of the island nearing saturation, officials are considering restrictions.
Of the record 32.7 million people who visited Greece last year, around 3.4 million, or one in 10, went to the island of just 15,500 residents.
"We need to set limits if we don't want to sink under overtourism," Santorini mayor Nikos Zorzos told AFP.
"There must not be a single extra bed... whether in the large hotels or Airbnb rentals."
As the sun set behind the horizon in Oia, thousands raised their phones to the sky to capture the moment, followed by scattered applause.
For canny entrepreneurs, the Cycladic island's famous sunset can be a cash cow.
One company advertised more than 50 "flying dresses", which have long flowing trains, for up to 370 euros ($401), on posters around Oia for anyone who wishes to "feel like a Greek goddess" or spruce up selfies.
'Respect Oia'
But elsewhere in Oia's narrow streets, residents have put up signs urging visitors to respect their home.
"RESPECT... It's your holiday... but it's our home," read a purple sign from the Save Oia group.
Shaped by a volcanic eruption 3,600 years ago, Santorini's landscape is "unique", the mayor said, and "should not be harmed by new infrastructure".
Around a fifth of the island is currently occupied by buildings.
At the edge of the cliff, a myriad of swimming pools and jacuzzis highlight Santorini is also a pricey destination.
In 2023, 800 cruise ships brought some 1.3 million passengers, according to the Hellenic Ports Association.
Cruise ships "do a lot of harm to the island", said Chantal Metakides, a Belgian resident of Santorini for 26 years.
"When there are eight or nine ships pumping out smoke, you can see the layer of pollution in the caldera," she said.
Cruise ship limits
In June, Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis floated the possibility of capping cruise ship arrivals to Greece's most popular islands.
"I think we'll do it next year," he told Bloomberg, noting that Santorini and tourist magnet Mykonos "are clearly suffering".
"There are people spending a lot of money to be on Santorini and they don’t want the island to be swamped," said the pro-business conservative leader, who was re-elected to a second four-year term last year.
In an AFP interview, Tourism Minister Olga Kefalogianni echoed this sentiment and said: "We must set quotas because it's impossible for an island such as Santorini... to have five cruise ships arriving at the same time."
Local officials have set a limit of 8,000 cruise boat passengers per day from next year.
But not all local operators agree.
Antonis Pagonis, head of Santorini's hoteliers association, believes better visitor flow management is part of the solution.
"It is not possible to have (on) a Monday, for example, 20 to 25,000 guests from the cruise ships, and the next day zero," he said.
Pagonis also argued that most of the congestion only affects parts of the island like the capital, Fira.
In the south of the island, the volcanic sand beaches are less crowded, even though it is high season in July.
'I'm in Türkiye
The modern tourism industry has also changed visitor behavior.
"I listened (to) people making a FaceTime call with the family, saying 'I'm in Türkiye," smiled tourist guide Kostas Sakavaras.
"They think that the church over there is a mosque because yesterday they were in Türkiye."
The veteran guide said the average tourist coming to the island has changed.
"Instagram has defined the way people choose the places to visit," he said, explaining everybody wants the perfect Instagram photo to confirm their expectations.