New Shepard’s 23rd mission, a dedicated payloads flight, was to fly 36 payloads from academia, research institutions, and students across the globe. The booster rocket failed about 1 minute into the flight as it reached MaxQ. The unmanned crew capsule did seperate and land safely. There were no passengers but if there were passengers they would have been safely aborted.
This mission would have brought the total number of commercial payloads flown on the vehicle to more than 150. Two payloads will fly on the exterior of the New Shepard booster for ambient exposure to the space environment. Eighteen payloads on this flight are funded by NASA, primarily by the Flight Opportunities Program. Among the NS-23 payloads are tens of thousands of postcards from Blue Origin’s nonprofit, Club for the Future, whose Postcards to Space program enables people around the world to fly their visions to space on New Shepard.
Brian Wang is a Futurist Thought Leader and a popular Science blogger with 1 million readers per month. His blog Nextbigfuture.com is ranked #1 Science News Blog. It covers many disruptive technology and trends including Space, Robotics, Artificial Intelligence, Medicine, Anti-aging Biotechnology, and Nanotechnology.
Known for identifying cutting edge technologies, he is currently a Co-Founder of a startup and fundraiser for high potential early-stage companies. He is the Head of Research for Allocations for deep technology investments and an Angel Investor at Space Angels.
A frequent speaker at corporations, he has been a TEDx speaker, a Singularity University speaker and guest at numerous interviews for radio and podcasts. He is open to public speaking and advising engagements.
