Blue Origin launches 6 passengers to the edge of space and back
CBSN
Jeff Bezos' rocket company Blue Origin launched its fourth crewed New Shepard flight Thursday — a 10-minute thrill ride carrying five entrepreneur/adventurers and the spacecraft's chief designer to the edge of space and back.
Running two days late because of high winds at the company's West Texas launch site, the stubby New Shepard rocket's hydrogen-fueled main engine roared to life at 9:58 a.m. EDT, throttled up to full thrust and boosted the spacecraft away atop a jet of flaming exhaust.
Gary Lai, one of Blue Origin's first employees and the architect of the New Shepard program, was added to the crew in place of comedian Pete Davidson after a launch delay and schedule conflict forced the "Saturday Night Live" star to withdraw.
Ashley White received her earliest combat action badge from the United States Army soon after the first lieutenant arrived in Afghanistan. The silver military award, recognizing soldiers who've been personally engaged by an attacker during conflict, was considered an achievement in and of itself as well as an affirming rite of passage for the newly deployed. White had earned it for using her own body to shield a group of civilian women and children from gunfire that broke out in the midst of her third mission in Kandahar province. All of them survived. She never mentioned the badge to anyone in her battalion.
The knock at the door came at nighttime on Mother's Day 2008 in Oregon, where Jessica Ellis' parents lived. It was around 9:20 p.m. and his wife, Linda, was already in bed; her father Steve Ellis told CBS News, that he thought someone let their animals out — but two soldiers in Class A uniforms were standing at the door.