FYI,

"Secretive Space Vehicle Tested at Private Texas Site"
Space.com
http://news.yahoo.com/s/space/20081208/sc_space/secretivespacevehiclet
estedatprivatetexassite

: That secretive rocket work being bankrolled by billionaire Jeff
: Bezos of Amazon.com fame has shed some new light on its activities.

: Blue Origin is developing New Shepard, a rocket-propelled
: vehicle that takes off and lands vertically and is designed to
: routinely fly multiple astronauts into suborbital space at
: competitive prices.

: Flight tests of the suborbital craft have been staged at a private
: launch site in Texas.

: Blue Origin is now noting that, in addition to providing the public
: with opportunities to experience spaceflight, New Shepard will also
: provide frequent opportunities for researchers to fly experiments
: into space and a microgravity environment.

: To help shape this activity, the group has announced that
: interested parties should contact Blue Origin's independent
: representative for research and education missions, Alan Stern, the
: former NASA chief of space science.

: These research and education missions are dubbed REM, oriented
: toward microgravity and space science investigations.

: This activity would be in addition to, not in place of, Blue
: Origin's long-standing plans for human-carrying commercial flights.
: The first opportunities for autonomous or remotely controlled
: experiments on unpiloted flights could be as early as 2011 and the
: first ones requiring accompanying research astronauts would be
: available as early as 2012.

: Coasting into space

: In a mission overview, Blue Origin explains that the New Shepard
: vehicle will consist of a pressurized Crew Capsule (CC) carrying
: experiments and astronauts atop a Propulsion Module (PM).

: Flights will take place from Blue Origin's own launch site, which
: is already operating in West Texas. New Shepard will take-off
: vertically and accelerate for approximately two and a half minutes
: before shutting off its rocket engines and coasting into space.

: The vehicle will carry rocket motors enabling the Crew Capsule to
: escape from the PM in the event of a serious anomaly during launch.
: In space, the Crew Capsule will separate from the PM and the two
: will reenter and land separately for re-use.

: The Crew Capsule will land softly under a parachute at the launch
: site. Astronauts and experiments will experience no more than a
: 6g acceleration and a 1.5g lateral acceleration during a typical
: flight. High-quality microgravity environments will be achieved for
: durations of three or more minutes, depending on the mission
: trajectory.

: Call for investigators

: Blue Origin is soliciting input from investigators to help design
: research astronaut and experiment accommodations. Researchers will
: have the opportunity to provide their own racks to mount into the
: vehicle (subject to a safety review), or use standard racks and
: services to mount their experiments.

: Flight experiments may be autonomous, remotely operated, or
: operated manually by an accompanying researcher provided by the
: customer or by Blue Origin.

: As for a timeline, Blue Origin notes that flight testing of
: prototype New Shepard vehicles began in 2006. The group expects the
: first opportunities for experiments requiring an accompanying
: researcher astronaut to be available in 2012. Flight opportunities
: in 2011 may be available for autonomous or remotely-controlled
: experiments on an unpiloted flight test.

: Experiment listing

: Preliminary accommodations and standard services Blue Origin
: anticipates will be available include:

: - Capacity — three or more positions to be used by astronauts or
: experiment racks
: - Experiment Mass Allocation — 120 kilograms available per position
: (including rack)
: - Windows — One per position
: - Data recording — Experiment data storage provided for post-flight
: download with synchronized trajectory parameter measurements

: As for the kinds of experiments that could be flown, Blue Origin's
: website lists remote sensing, such as atmospheric science and Earth
: observations, sampling of the atmosphere and magnetospheric
: measurements. In-cabin science investigations are listed too,
: including physiology, gravitational biology or microgravity physics
: research.

: Still under study is possible launching of deployable payloads from
: the New Shepard.

: NASA interest

: Blue Origin's interest in suborbital science, like other rocket
: firms, is being stoked by NASA creating a program office to explore
: this arena at the space agency's Ames Research Center.

: That office is investigating the use of emerging commercial
: suborbital vehicles for scientific research, including, but not
: limited to, flights to space of researchers to allow for
: human-tended experiments.

: By the way, a Human-Tended Suborbital Science Workshop is on tap
: next week at the Westin San Francisco Market Street. That Dec. 15
: workshop is being held in conjunction with the American Geophysical
: Union Fall Meeting and is sponsored by the Universities Space
: Research Association.

Mark Reiff