American entrepreneur Jeff Bezos’ aerospace enterprise Blue Origin declared the launching date of its second human mission, revealing the names of two of the four crew members of spacecraft New Shepard 18 (NS18).

The 18th flight of New Shepard, thus the name NS18, will lift off on October 12th along with Chris Boshuizen, a former NASA engineer and co-founder of Planet Labs, and Glen de Vries, Vice-Chair, Life Sciences and Healthcare, Dassault Systèmes and co-founder, Medidata, as well as two other members who names are yet to be revealed.

“This is a fulfilment of my greatest childhood dream,” Boshuizen said. “More importantly, though, I see this flight as an opportunity to inspire students to pursue careers in STEM and catalyse the next generation of space explorers. After all, our future of life in space is in their very capable hands.”

The lift-off is presently aimed for 7:00 pm IST from Launch Site One located in West Texas.
The flight follows Blue Origin’s triumphant first human flight on July 20th, which includes Jeff Bezos, his brother Mark Bezos, aviation pioneer Wally Funk and Oliver Daemen, Blue Origin’s first customer.

Vries said that he spent his entire career working to extend people’s lives. However, with inadequate supplies and energy on Earth, extending our reach to space can help humankind continue to flourish.

Bezos, 57, established Blue Origin in 2000 to one day construct floating space communities with artificial gravity where people will be able to work and live. Today, the company is generating a heavy-lift orbital rocket called New Glenn and a Moon Lander aspiring to contract to NASA.

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TOPICS: Blue Origin Jeff Bezos NASA