A small stack of miniature black boards modeled after the monolith from the epic 2001: A Space Odyssey has returned from space on the maiden flight of Blue Origin’s second crewed launch vehicle.
The block was flown for satellite mission integrator Spacemanic in partnership with Croatian publisher Amaranthine Books. It took off and landed on Wednesday. (October 23), packed into the New Shepherd capsule “RSS Kalman Line”. Flying aboard a new booster, the unmanned spacecraft and its science fiction-inspired payload were first proposed by Hungarian-American aerospace engineer Theodore von Kármán, a space between Earth and space. It flew over a 62-mile (100-kilometer) border.
“As the pages of 2001: A Space Odyssey unfold, so too does a cosmic journey that transcends the boundaries of Earth and literature, reaching for the stars in ways only possible through the imaginative collaboration between Spacemanic and Amarantine Books. Reach” companies. stated in the release.
The reusable rocket launched from Blue Origin’s Launch Site 1 near Van Horn in west Texas at 11:27 a.m. EDT (15:27 GMT or 10:27 a.m. CDT local time). The New Shepard vehicle was powered and fired by a single BE-3 engine. For the first 2 minutes and 20 seconds of the flight, it staged and then reignited to slow the booster to just 6 miles (9.7 kilometers) and land upright on its legs.
The RSS Karman Line capsule coasted the rest of its way into space, completing an 11-minute flight under three parachutes and making a soft touchdown not far from the ground.
Related: Blue Origin launches human-evaluated New Shepard rocket No. 2, nails landing (video)
Once back on Earth, each tiny 0.4 x 1.6 x 3.5 inch (1 x 4 x 9 centimeter) monolith will be paired with one of just seven individually numbered copies. . ‘2001: A Space Odyssey: Monolith Edition’ is a print edition of Arthur C. Clarke’s novel, signed by the team behind the project. Each book monolith fits into a fused glass cover, held in place by hidden magnets, so it can be removed and displayed separately.
When booting is complete, all but one copy of $10,990 Monolith Edition It was still available for sale.
In addition to the Monolith, the RSS Karman Line and its booster carried 11 other payloads on the NS-27 mission. This includes two different navigation sensors being tested in Blue Origin’s lunar landing program, a close operations sensor that flew as part of a NASA TechFlights grant. and tens of thousands student designed postcard Awarded by Club for the Future, Blue Origin’s STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts, and Mathematics)-focused nonprofit organization.
RSS Karman Line is the fourth New Shepard capsule to be flown by Blue Origin, following the cargo-only Jules Verne and HG Wells. The “first step” in human evaluation. To date, the latter has launched 43 people into space. Jeff Bezos, founder of Blue Origin“Star Trek” actor William Shatner and Laura Shepard Churchley, daughter of Alan Shepard, the first American astronaut who created Blue Origin. It was named the Suborbital Launch System..
The new booster is Tail 5, the fifth New Shepard rocket to fly since 2015.
One concept that Clark and 1968 film director Stanley Kubrick correctly predicted was the advent of commercial spaceflight. In “2001: A Space Odyssey,” it is a space plane operated by Pan American World Airlines (Pan Am) that transports passengers to and from the space station.
The Spacemania Monolith is not the first replica of the “2001” monument to fly into space. In February 2001, NASA astronaut Thomas Jones launched aboard the Space Shuttle Atlantis with a copy of this book and a Sears Craftsman knife whetstone depicting the Monolith.
“My book and miniature monolith, both veterans of the 2001 space flight, are now in the collection of the National Air and Space Museum,” Jones wrote. Essay for museum website 2018. “The STS-98 crew and I are pleased to have played a small part in raising awareness of the importance of this groundbreaking book and film. We hope to see this vast vision of space travel become a reality. looking forward to it.”
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