Jeff Bezos, his brother Mark and an online auction winner are aiming to go into space for 11 minutes on July 20th on the first crewed flight of New Shepard, a spacecraft system designed to take ticket holders on brief joy rides to space. The fully autonomous suborbital rocket is unlike Moon craft since it won’t circle the earth or float in space. It will go 62 miles above Earth, at 17,000 miles per hour, and will hit three times the speed of sound until the rocket expends most of its fuel. The crew capsule will then separate from the rocket and hover momentarily until it hurtles back down toward the ground.
It’s lower risk than an orbital flight where re-entry to the Earth’s atmosphere has to withstand 3,500 degrees Fahrenheit and 4.5 Gs of force. This won’t be as hot or as fast but clearly there are dangers. Earth’s atmosphere is not survivable above altitudes of 50,000 feet without a spacesuit, and Bezos will be traveling up to 350,000 feet. But the capsule will be pressurized, with access to oxygen if the cabin loses pressure. There are also safety features to help the capsule land gently even if a couple of its parachutes fail to deploy. One of Virgin Galactic’s suborbital space planes broke apart in 2014 killing one of the pilots.
Bezos, 12 January 1964, no verified birth time, is an ambitious Sun Mars in Capricorn with his Sun trine Pluto and sextile Neptune as well as widely square Jupiter in pro-active Aries. He’s also got a Yod of Neptune sextile Pluto inconjunct Jupiter giving him super-confidence and more than a hint of arrogance or at least overly grandiose ambitions.
Obviously nerves will be stretched if the trip goes ahead even though the Blue Origin craft have tested safely for a decade and that tension will reflect on the individual charts. What might give me pause for concern in his case is tr Pluto conjunct his Sun/Mars midpoint which is brutal, ruthless, accident-prone, damaging; and tr Saturn approaching less than a degree away from an exact conjunction to his Mars/Saturn midpoint which is also accident-prone.
His brother Mark, 17 May 1968 (net sources) a Sun Taurus trine Uranus Pluto and opposition Neptune, also, not surprisingly, looks stressed, over such a landmark experience, no matter how eagerly he anticipates it. His midpoints are nervy and aggravated.
I used to love all the Anne Mccaffrey books, anyway I hope it goes well for them. But it would be nice if somebody who wasn’t that rich got the opportunity of a lifetime.
Given Washington State’s problems you would have thought the local government would have insisted on investment on infrastructure, like all the bridges that need to be replaced. Given that they have a tax free status, it would be the least that they could do. Shouldn’t that be a condition?
Besides, if it is considered reprehensible for other countries behave like tax havens, it is kind of disgraceful that states like Washington, should behave in such a way.
I have no rational reason for this, but I have the feeling that Besos’ attitude to life after this flight will be radically different from what it is now.
Don;t disagree. It’s a life changing event, even without any hiccups. How many people have a chance to take a trip in a rocket ship? I wish I was better skilled with charts; it should say something about “changes”.
Winning bid on the auction – $28m.
Imagine having that lying round as spare change.
Wasn’t it Elon Musk? 😉
“What might give me pause for concern in his case is tr Pluto conjunct his Sun/Mars midpoint which is brutal, ruthless, accident-prone, damaging; and tr Saturn approaching less than a degree away from an exact conjunction to his Mars/Saturn midpoint which is also accident-prone.”
Dear Jeff, All that money and no astrologer? Seriously, something needs a re-check, soon.
Astro theme use 11:33 am birth time (unverified).
Interesting to compare with Elon Musk’s venture (Dragon Crew shuttle), which is clearly intended to push back limits so that humankind can really start to explore space, with Bezo’s which appears to be mostly intent upon monetarising ‘space travel’ by turning it into a fairground attraction for those with money to burn, literally. Just another business opportunity for him. It may turn out to be more difficult than he had expected. But I hope no one comes to any harm.
If 11:33 is birth time, Jupiter is close to the Ascendant. He reaches for and seems to get Jupiterian heights. It is such a shame that the USA never enacted a national sales tax on online purchases. We could have raised funds this way when we need to fund the bailout 2008-2010. We could be doing it now — to fund infrastructure. Instead, we’ve let Bezos put tons of independent booksellers and small retailers (which must charge state sales tax) out of business. Now as the owner of Whole Foods, Amazon has close to a monopoly on American retail. Plus, he and other Washington State residents, like Bill Gates and the owner of Starbucks, don’t pay state income tax.
While we’re soapboxing, Boeing squeeked by with nary a cent of tax paid.
I do wish them well!
That rocket looks like an absurd ‘Austin Powers’ parody. But good luck to him.
Booom!!!??