Spinning into Lunar Graviation for New Shepard

Thu Feb 06 2025
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Blue Origin set off to the skies a few days back from their Texas launch site for a 29th run. This trip wasn’t about tourists having a blast in space. It was all about research. In a twist, they spun the capsule enough time to simulate moon gravity. That meant spinning up to 11 times a minute. It made the trip feel like on the moon - which is a big thing for scientists. NASA was excited because this helped out their Artemis missions, meant to explore the moon. Normally rocketing to the moon for tests is way too expensive and time consuming. They took along gear to check if things burn differently on the moon. And who knows, maybe this test helps out with safety tips and better fire plans for moon missions.
There were also payloads on the flight to tackle lunar dust, which is a huge pain for spacecraft. Another one dealt with building things on the moon and finding water ice stuck below the surface. Why is water important? It could be turned into rocket fuel, which could make travel to Mars easier. The capsule made it to nearly 342, 000 feet and back down to Earth with a parachute flip flare in barely ten minutes. The kind of short sightseeing trip for the moon equivalent gravity that aerospace engineers wish they could take every day! The point of this whole thing was to test out moon tech with a budget and time frame that won’t make the scientists and engineers go bankrupt.
https://localnews.ai/article/spinning-into-lunar-graviation-for-new-shepard-b306365d

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