Blue Origins celebrity rocket ride: an empty publicity stunt?

The short ride garnered publicity for the crew with little recognition for those who made it possible. At least it added to our rocket-launch expertise.

You undoubtedly saw some of the extensive, hyperventilating media and news coverage of the recent Blue Origin sub-orbital flight with six female celebrities and semi-celebrities onboard…or perhaps you’ve already forgotten the event, as it was an ephemeral story in today’s 24/7/365 news world.

The company’s New Shepard rocket lifted off from their West Texas launch site around 9:30 a.m. ET Monday, April 14, and landed safely nearby about 10 minutes later. The flight, designated as NS-31, soared well above the Kármán line, at an altitude of 100 kilometers (62 miles) that is often used to define the altitude at which air space ends and outer space begins, as detailed in Figure 1.

My first thought was that this was just a “cheap” but expensive publicity stunt, nothing more. There was no science at all, just the six women in their custom-designed and fitted space jumpers having fun, about two minutes of weightlessness, and the landing, seen in Figure 2. Two of the six space tourists had legitimate technical qualifications: Aisha Bowe is a former NASA engineer, and Amanda Nguyễn is a bioastronautics research scientist, but there wasn’t much opportunity for science on the flight. All the crew needed was a couple of days of training before they headed to space.

That “cheap stunt” feeling was reinforced when I read this cliché-laden “word salad” from Blue Origin about the New Shepard project: “What a privilege to witness this crew of trailblazers depart the capsule today,” said Phil Joyce, Senior Vice President, New Shepard. “Each of these women is a storyteller who will use their voices — individually and together — to channel their life-changing experience today into creating a lasting impact that will inspire people across our planet for generations. Thank you to this remarkable crew for uplifting so many on their historic journey toward the stars and back.”

I’ll be clear about one thing: there was a significant risk in this happy-go-lucky trip. Rocketry is dangerous, no doubt about it; you’re sitting on top of thousands of pounds of fuel, which will be managed as a controlled explosion — and hopefully it will stay that way. I couldn’t find out what g-force levels they endured, but they did reach Mach 3, which is approximately 3,500 kilometers per hour (2,200 miles per hour). Note that escape velocity from Earth is about 40,000 km/hr (25,000 mph) and Space Shuttle launches reached 3g while some moon launches reached 6g.

Did the flight achieve its publicity objective? Yes, it absolutely did. It received lots of pre-, during-, and post-flight attention and coverage. The stated goals were related to “women’s empowerment” and some publicity for an upcoming album by space tourist and traveler Katy Perry.

This brief flight does not qualify the crew to use the designation “astronaut.”

The launch has less-visible benefits

However, the more I thought about this superficial publicity stunt, the more my views on it split into two diverging paths. While it was an orchestrated publicity stunt, it wasn’t cheap (meaning inexpensive). It’s hard to put a direct dollar cost on the effort, but it’s many millions of dollars.

But it is also part of the rocketry learning experience and knowledge base. Some commentators and influencers (of which there are many) derided the flight as a wasteful, costly, and resource-consuming publicity stunt. I agree and disagree at the same time, as it was a publicity stunt — but I wouldn’t call it pointless.

Here’s why: despite so many successful launches, we’re still in the early to mid-life cycle of rocketry, where every launch is a learning experience. With each launch, hundreds of procedures are refined, tested, retested, upgraded, and more. It’s like manufacturing a prototype unit vs doing a pilot run vs full-volume production. You learn so much with each step-up in volume as you fine-tune the process, reduce risks, uncover bumps and kinks, and more.

It’s especially the case when you move to a “full-up” final configuration in contrast to doing a partially complete launch with no capsule or only a dummy unit. While you certainly do learn from those early tests, adding a new stage changes many of the early procedures you worked out; that’s why “all-up” testing is often a major learning experience rather than just another incremental step.

I’ll provide an analogy using the first round of the Iridium global satellite network, which was launched several decades ago. It had 66 satellites, plus some spares; each individual launch carried multiple satellites. The Iridium scheme was innovative and risky, as each satellite functioned as a mobile switching center dynamically linking and unlinking with nearby satellites as they passed. The need for multiple satellite launches forced “mass production” of the satellites and the entire launch operation.

Instead of each satellite being customized and different, with slight to moderate changes from the previous one on the production line, the Iridium units were built in medium to large batches of identical units. Further, the entire launch scheme was standardized with launches at “rented” sites in Russia and French Guyana. Everything needed for the launch – the satellite, its propellant, batteries, setup equipment, test instrumentation, and more – was packed in standard shipping containers and ready to be loaded onto their transport, then unloaded and unpacked at the launch site.

So it seems to me that this publicity stunt has a hidden value in continuing to hone the skills, procedures, and effort needed to make these rocket launches a smoother process with fewer surprises. That’s not at all a bad thing. Blue Origin’s NS-31 was the 31^st New Shepard mission and its 11^th flight with human passengers.

There is one aspect of the flight that initially bothered me a great deal and still does; in fact, I was originally going to rant about it, but I then realized the less obvious benefits of this publicity-centric mission. The six space travelers got all the attention – after all, that was its intent – while the thousands of nameless engineers, technicians, scientists, manufacturing personnel, ground support teams, flight controllers, and others received none at all.

It’s the advanced-technology conundrum of modern times with so many runaway successes. When you make things look easy, they are no longer appreciated for what they are or what it took to get there. That, in turn, allows the almost superfluous celebrities to get the attention, while the thousands who worked to make it happen are glossed over.

References

Blue Origin launches star-studded crew on space tourism rocket, CNN
Blue Origin’s New Shepard Rocket Completes 31st Mission To Space, Blue Origin
New Shepard Mission NS-31, Blue Origin
Blue Origin NS-31, Wikipedia
New Shepard, Wikipedia
Katy Perry ‘regrets behavior’ on Blue Origin flight as star faces flood of conspiracy theories after historic mission, The Sun (UK)

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