Sneak Peek at New Shepard Crew Capsule

Doug Messier News 24 Comments
New Shepard capsule interior (Credit: Blue Origin)

Our New Shepard flight test program is focused on demonstrating the performance and robustness of the system. In parallel, we’ve been designing the capsule interior with an eye toward precision engineering, safety, and comfort. Here’s a sneak peek.

New Shepard crew capsule (Credit: Blue Origin)
New Shepard crew capsule (Credit: Blue Origin)
New Shepard (Credit: Blue Origin)

If you happen to be attending the 33rd Space Symposium in Colorado Springs April 3-6, come see this for yourself. The high-fidelity capsule mockup will be on display alongside the New Shepard reusable booster that flew to space and returned five times.

Jeff Bezos

  • JamesG

    So… they are planning on flying pass, er… participants without pressure suits?

  • Douglas Messier

    Appears that way. So is Virgin Galactic.

  • JamesG

    They changed (again)? They (VG) were depicting them in suits.

  • Saturn13

    Nice. How is that biconic capsule coming along Jeff? You going to land it on the south pole of the Moon?

  • windbourne

    New Shep, not new Glenn.

  • windbourne

    New Shepard, not new Glenn.

  • jimmycrackcorn

    Would pressure suits really do anything in a catastrophic failure?

  • jimmycrackcorn

    read a NASA report on the columbia and challenger investigations last year, and I don’t think even they could say that the suits would have helped in the Columbia, if they had their helmets on and had been pressured up.

    I’m seriously asking, because I don’t know likelihoodof losing pressure in a non-catastrophic way.I

  • Ted Southern (FFD)

    The Russians introduced the Sokol IVA space suit in 1973 after a slow leak depressurization of their Soyuz 11 vehicle in 1971 resulted in the loss of 3 cosmonauts from hypoxia, while the vehicle landed safely.

    The Challenger investigation concluded the crew initially lost consciousness because of hypoxia and were killed on impact with the water; the crew compartment of the shuttle was relatively intact. So it is possible that IVA suits could have saved the Challenger crew, which is why NASA started flying with them after Challenger. (Advanced Crew Escape System)

    So, both Russia and the US have concluded after hard lessons learned that IVA launch/reentry/abort suits are necessary for high altitude flight. I think the commercial industry would do well to follow their lead, but I am biased!

  • Zed_WEASEL

    Those VG flight suits aren’t pressurized suits.

  • Jacob Samorodin

    They will all sign a legal waiver, the gist of it being, you board this craft, there’s a chance you will die; do you still want to try and reach space?

  • JamesG

    So the helmets were just for….?

  • jimmycrackcorn

    Thanks for the reply!

  • JamesG

    Catastrophic failure like the booster blowing up, the LES failing, and subjecting the cre…. participants to 100+ Gs?
    Probably not.

    However if the cabin were to spring a leak and start venting pressure it would make a difference in the ~5 minutes or so it would take to get down to a safe altitude.

    But, as mentioned, you sign yer liability release, ya takes yer chances.
    If I personally were going to spend this much money for a weekend/ 15 minute flight, I would want to have a suit as a souvenir at the very least!

  • jimmycrackcorn

    True.

    and Van Horn is a bustling metropolitan too, so there’s that.

  • Zed_WEASEL

    The VG flight suits got no neck ring seal to pressurized the suit.

  • JamesG

    Maria’s Cohina makes some awesome enchiladas so yeah…

  • duheagle

    Keeping your gourd from being pounded into grey guacamole by the vibrations of the hybrid engine, I’d imagine. Pilots wore protective headgear starting before the First World War. Chuck Yeager broke the sound barrier wearing a helmet. Pressure suits for test pilots were unusual before the early 50’s, but helmets, of one sort or another, had been around for decades.

  • JamesG

    It would be amusing to see the pass… I mean participants climb into their iPhoney styled spacecraft wearing old fashioned leather football helmets.

  • therealdmt

    Good looking interior — a nice amount of room and window coverage

  • JamesG
  • Bleezz
  • publiusr

    Those windows are almost big enough to bail out of…

  • I don’t like solid rocket abort motor being in the passenger cabin.

    Bob Clark