By Anthony Cuthbertson
Copyright yahoo
A mystery passenger will be aboard Blue Origin’s next space tourism mission, after deciding to keep their identity secret until after Wednesday’s flight.
Jeff Bezos’s private space firm will launch six people to the edge of space aboard its New Shepard vehicle, with lift off set to take place from Blue Origin’s Texas facility at 8.30am local time (2.30pm BST).
It is the 15th human flight for the New Shepard program, which began in 2021, but it is the first to carry an unnamed passenger.
Blue Origin said ahead of the mission that joining the five space tourists will be “an undisclosed sixth crew member who asked to remain anonymous until after the flight”.
The five named participants are franchise executive Jeff Elgin, electrical engineer Clint Kelly, entrepreneur Danna Karagussova, startup founder Aaron Newman and real estate investor Vitalii Ostovsky.
The launch of the latest Blue Origin flight, called NS-36, will be live streamed on the company’s website.
Ticket prices for the 10-minute jaunt are estimated to be between $200,000 to $300,000, however one seat on the first flight was auctioned for $28 million.
Space tourism flights conducted by Blue Origin and other private firms like SpaceX have faced significant criticism for their environmental impact.
“Routine space tourism launches may undermine progress made by the Montreal Protocol in reversing ozone depletion in the Arctic springtime upper stratosphere,”researchers wrote in a study published in the AGU journal Earth’s Future.
“[Soot] particles from rockets are also of great concern, as these are almost five hundred times more efficient at warming the atmosphere than all other sources of soot combined.”
Critics have also raised ethical concerns surrounding social inequality, as well as pointing to the limited scientific value that such missions offer.
Others, like NS-36 passenger Karagussova, claim that tourist flights will democratise access to space.
“The future of humanity is connected with space,” Ms Karagussova wrote on Instagram ahead of the latest flight.
“By exploring new horizons, we not only advance technology but also expand our own capabilities. For me, Mission NS-36 with Blue Origin is part of a research project and a step toward a dream I have been working on for many years.”