[ExI] How Risky Is It to Send Jeff Bezos to the Edge of Space?

[John Grigg]

"The rich-guy space race between Bezos and Branson (SpaceX’s Elon Musk is
the odd man out for now) may convince other well-heeled space tourists who
want assurances that a rocket ride is both fun and safe. But experts note
that space travel is always risky, even when spacecraft have undergone
years of testing. Blue Origin’s flight will be its first launch with human
passengers; previous flights have only carried a mannequin. For Virgin
Galactic, it will be only the second time the rocket plane has carried
people.

“When you're flying humans, it's always one step more complex than just
flying an uncrewed mission, and that’s because you have the lives of six
people that you have to worry about,” says Laura Forczyk
<https://www.astralytical.com/about>, an Atlanta-based space industry
consultant who has flown several times with NASA on zero-g research
flights. “Blue Origin has no reason to fear that something will go wrong,
but you never know. Space is a risky business.”
https://www.wired.com/story/how-risky-is-it-to-send-jeff-bezos-to-the-edge-of-space/
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.extropy.org/pipermail/extropy-chat/attachments/20210611/e60ed1c2/attachment.htm>