Blue Origin - back in the game and for the first time in 2 years delivered passengers into space (spoiler: one of the parachutes did not open)

Blue Origin is back in the space tourism business. On May 19, Jeff Bezos' space company successfully delivered six clients to the edge of space and back. The flight ended a nearly two-year hiatus in crewed missions. This was the seventh Blue Origin trip with people on board. Mission NS-25 was a quick jaunt to cross the Karman Line, the boundary of space, about 100 km above Earth's surface, and it launched from the company's West Texas launch site. Among the six people in the New Shepard capsule were 90-year-old sculptor and writer Ed Dwight, a former Air Force captain who was the first black astronaut candidate when he was selected for training in 1961. He underwent training but was ultimately not chosen for NASA's Astronaut Corps, and has never been to space. Also on board were venture investor Mason Angel, French beer magnate Sylvain Hiron, entrepreneur Kenneth L. Hess, retired accountant Carol Schaller, and pilot Gopi Tottakura. Tourists briefly unfastened their seatbelts and felt zero gravity. The crew landed safely about 10 minutes after launch. One of the three parachutes of the capsule didn't open properly on the way back, but it did not pose any problems for landing thanks to the system's redundancy. This was the 25th New Shepard mission and the seventh crewed Blue Origin flight. The last time the module flew with a crew was in August 2022, but the following month during a mission with payload, there was an issue with an engine nozzle, and there were no flights until December 2023 when a payload mission was launched. The company does not publicly disclose the cost of the flight for tourists. Source: [Space.com](https://www.space.com/blue-origin-ns-25-space-tourism-mission)