Suborbital flights With Blue Origin No More

Me in front of New Shepard a little after it landed after flight NS-19 in Dec. 2021

Blue Origin just announced that they'll be pausing its New Shepard spaceflights, for no less than two years, to focus on developing a lunar lander for NASA, marking a shift from space tourism to lunar exploration.

New Shepard spaceflights are of course of suborbital, a hop to space of less than 15 minutes and back, spaceflight. (With Virgin Galactic, although very different, the experience is a little longer.)

Despite their cadence of successful flights — last month being their 38th flight — and with 98 humans who have flown to the Kármán Line, Blue is no longer offering the service to customers (for at least two years).

The Suborbital spaceflight industry has its share of opinions, conflicted feelings, critics, even mockery, but the truth is, if the prices were way down, many more people would want to experience this most unique experience.

Blue's last flight, this past 21 January, mission NS-38, with its crew of six, reached an apogee (the highest point of their spaceflight) of 106 km (66 mi).

(The Kármán line is a widely accepted boundary that defines the edge of space, located at an altitude of 100 kilometers (62 miles) above sea level.)

No matter the definition, wouldn't you want to see the Earth from 100 kilometers above the ground you stand on?

Even ~35,000 feet in the air from an everyday airliner inspires me when I look down — imagine 328,084 feet!!

Imagine seeing the curvature of the Earth, and the darkness of space, simultaneously experiencing microgravity, and having a human experience that till this day, less than 1000 humans have ever experienced?

At this point, there are no companies offering anyone anywhere in the world this most unique experience, which, is a little sad because the technology worked.

(Virgin Galactic is also on hiatus with their suborbital spaceflights, in their case, it's because they're working on the next generation spaceplane.)

Space Tourism indeed has a bit of an elite connotation, but the industry is just at its infancy, and was just beginning to have more research missions, with scientists on board, and experiments being conducted, and yes, for the benefit of life on Earth.

But simply as the human experience, just like we like to vacation to see the oceans, hike mountains, visit new continents, what is so wrong with wanting to see the Earth from space?

From the no-time-for-sensitive-stuff-like attitude from astronauts of the Apollo era of the '60s (with limited time in space and with strict objectives), to today's astronauts (from the NASA-trained to the "space tourist"), just about everyone describes feeling so much awe, feeling inspired, humble, emotional, even a life changing experience as to how they now view life on Earth.

It's something that just 20 years ago didn't exist (for the everyday person), and with the last several years of this industry thriving, it has changed so many; many will claim for the better. Explained as the Overview Effect.

Hoping this "hop" to space is experienced in the soon-future again by many more.