Blue Origin readies for fourth crewed flight to the edge of space
CBSN
Jeff Bezos' Blue Origin is gearing up to launch its fourth crewed New Shepard flight Tuesday — a 10-minute rocket-powered thrill ride to the edge of space and back carrying five wealthy space tourists and the spacecraft's chief designer.
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. Blue Origin did not reveal what caused the delay or what might have been needed to correct the issue.
But for Lai, riding into space on a rocket he helped design, will give him a chance to personally evaluate "the safest human spaceflight vehicle ever designed or built or operated."
UFO sightings should not be dismissed because they could in fact be surveillance drones or weapons, say Japanese lawmakers who launched a group on Thursday to probe the matter. The investigation comes less than a year after the U.S. Defense Department issued a report calling the region a "hotspot" for sightings of the mysterious objects.
The Allied invasion of Normandy 80 years ago today marked a pivotal event that historians often refer to as the beginning of the end of World War II. This operation began the liberation of Nazi-occupied territories and eventually ended the atrocities that resulted in the extermination of more than 6 million Jewish people.
In the weeks following D-Day, America and its allies deployed over 2 million troops into France, including a first-of-its-kind, top-secret U.S. military unit with a unique mission: to trick the Germans into chasing fake targets. Known as the Ghost Army, this unit's efforts 80 years ago marked the beginning of the end for Adolf Hitler.