MERRITT ISLAND, Fla.—Those taking a virtual ride to space on the new Blue Origin New Shepard simulator at Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex face the same conundrum as the folks who can afford the real thing—don’t forget to look out the window.
“The common thing that we’ve heard from basically every astronaut is that they had wished they had spent more time looking out the window, and less time getting out of the seat and floating around,” said Blue Origin’s Barret Schlegelmilch, whose title is Crew Member 7. He is the person who trains the six customers who take the roughly 10-minute trip up to space and back aboard Jeff Bezos’ rocket company’s space tourism rocket.
He was on hand Friday to explain how the life-size simulator of the crew capsule works sitting amid an array of displays and simulators from the likes of SpaceX, Boeing, Lockheed Martin and others within KSC’s Gateway attraction, which is free to visitors with paid admission.
The simulator opened recently alongside a special box for people to participate in the Postcards to Space program run by Blue Origin’s nonprofit Club for the Future. Guests can drop in a postcard to be flown on a future New Shepard flight that will be sent back to them in the mail.
“The way it works is you go inside, you sit in the seats which are identical to our actual flight seats,” he said. “Everything you can see and touch in there is basically identical to the real thing.”
Unlike the real thing that takes up to six people past the Karman line, about 82 miles altitude, to experience weightlessness and see the curvature of the Earth, visitors to KSC won’t be getting out of their seat.
But they will be distracted during what is a sped-up, four-minute experience wearing VR headsets, especially by the digital zero-gravity indicators that appear on screen.
Those indicators, little floating objects astronauts bring in space to let them know it’s “floating time,” have ranged from Legos to Skittles to a football taken up by NFL Hall of Famer and Good Morning America’s Michael Strahan when he took the trip on board back in 2021.
On the simulator, riders get to choose from among a mini Saturn V rocket, a space shuttle, a crew capsule or a tennis ball, and when the time comes, the simulator makes them appear as if they are floating. Riders’ virtual hands can flick them across the cabin, and even into one another.
That’s why it’s easy to forget to look out the window.
The VR headsets are loaded with images taken with 360-degree cameras from previous flights of New Shepard, which launches from Blue Origin’s West Texas facility. The rocket has flown 23 times but has not taken flight since September 2022 when an uncrewed version of the rocket suffered a malfunctioning booster at liftoff.
The capsule on that flight did what it was supposed to do, activating the emergency escape engines to safely shoot the capsule away from the booster and then land safely nearby, but the booster was destroyed.
The incident forced the Federal Aviation Administration to ground the rocket for more than a year as Blue Origin concluded its investigation and enacted a series of fixes to ensure it wouldn’t happen again.
It affected only the uncrewed version of New Shepard, while the capsule and booster that was used for every human spaceflight remained intact. Blue Origin has manufactured a new booster as well.
“We’ll be flying very soon,” Schlegelmilch said.
Before the incident, New Shepard had from July 2021 to August 2022 flown six successful crewed flights taking up 31 people, including one person who flew on it twice.
Passengers have included Bezos, who made the first flight, Strahan, “Star Trek” actor William Shatner and Laura Shepard Churchley, daughter of Alan Shepard, the first American in space for whom the rocket is named. The price people have paid has not been announced by Blue Origin.
Central Floridians who have made the trip include Winter Park couple Marc and Sharon Hagle who flew in March 2022 followed by Brevard County millionaire Steve Young in August 2022.
The Hagles spent a portion of their free-floating time enjoying the first kiss among private astronauts in space. They plan to return to space when Blue Origin gets back into the business of crewed flights.
And while millionaires will continue to be the primary customer base for Blue Origin, the simulator at KSC opens up the experience to the masses, Schlegelmilch said.
If You Go
Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex: Space Commerce Way, Merritt Island, FloridaHours: 9 a.m.-5 p.m. daily
Admission: $75 single-day, $65 for children ages 3-11
