{"id":40444,"date":"2025-08-03T14:10:13","date_gmt":"2025-08-03T14:10:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/40444\/"},"modified":"2025-08-03T14:10:13","modified_gmt":"2025-08-03T14:10:13","slug":"blue-origin-launches-crypto-billionaire-justin-sun-and-5-other-people-to-suborbital-space","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/40444\/","title":{"rendered":"Blue Origin launches crypto billionaire Justin Sun and 5 other people to suborbital space"},"content":{"rendered":"

Replay: New Shepard Mission NS-34 Webcast – YouTube
\n\"Replay:<\/p>\n

Watch On <\/a><\/p>\n

Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin launched a crypto billionaire and five other people to the final frontier on Sunday (Aug. 3).<\/p>\n

The mission \u2014 known as NS-34, because it was the 34th overall flight of Blue Origin’s New Shepard<\/a> vehicle \u2014 lifted off from the company’s West Texas spaceport at 8:43 a.m. EDT (1243 GMT; 7:43 a.m. local time in West Texas).<\/p>\n

\"a<\/p>\n

A Blue Origin New Shepard rocket carrying the NS-34 crew lifts off on a suborbital spaceflight on Sunday, Aug. 3, 2025. (Image credit: Blue Origin)<\/p>\n

The highest-profile NS-34 passenger was Justin Sun, a 34-year-old billionaire who founded the blockchain platform Tron. In June 2021, Sun won an auction for a seat aboard the first-ever crewed flight of New Shepard, plunking down $28 million. (He did so anonymously; we didn’t learn that Sun posted the winning bid until December 2021<\/a>.)<\/p>\n

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A scheduling conflict kept Sun from joining that landmark flight<\/a>, which took place on July 20, 2021 \u2014 the 52nd anniversary of the Apollo 11<\/a> moon landing. The passengers that day were Jeff Bezos<\/a>, his brother Mark, aviation pioneer Wally Funk and Dutch student Oliver Daemen.<\/p>\n

\"a<\/p>\n

The passengers for Blue Origin’s NS-34 suborbital spaceflight. (Image credit: Blue Origin)<\/p>\n

The people flying with Sun on Sunday were Arvinder (Arvi) Singh Bahal, an Indian-born American real estate investor and adventurer; Turkish businessman and photographer G\u00f6khan Erdem; Deborah Martorell, a journalist and meteorologist from Puerto Rico; Englishman Lionel Pitchford, who has run an orphanage in Nepal for three decades; and American entrepreneur James (J.D.) Russell.<\/p>\n

All were spaceflight rookies except Russell, who flew on Blue Origin’s NS-28 mission<\/a> in November 2024. You can learn more about each of them in our NS-34 “meet the crew” story<\/a>.<\/p>\n

NS-34 was the 14th human spaceflight to date for New Shepard, which consists of a rocket topped by a crew capsule. Both of these elements are reusable; the rocket comes back to Earth for a vertical, powered touchdown like those performed by SpaceX<\/a>‘s Falcon 9 rockets, and the capsule lands softly under parachutes.<\/p>\n

Breaking space news, the latest updates on rocket launches, skywatching events and more!<\/p>\n

Each New Shepard flight lasts 10 to 12 minutes from liftoff to capsule touchdown. During this brief time, passengers get above the K\u00e1rm\u00e1n line<\/a> \u2014 the 62-mile-high (100 kilometers) demarcation widely regarded as the point where space begins \u2014 and experience a few minutes of weightlessness<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Blue Origin has not revealed its ticket prices, so we don’t how much folks usually pay for a ride. But it’s safe to say that it’s considerably less than Sun ponied up back in 2021.<\/p>\n

That sum was a philanthropic contribution. according to Blue Origin.<\/p>\n

“The proceeds from the $28 million bid benefitted 19 space-focused charities to inspire future generations to pursue careers in STEAM [science, technology, engineering, art and math] and help shape the future of life in space,” the company wrote in an NS-34 mission description<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Replay: New Shepard Mission NS-34 Webcast – YouTube Watch On Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin launched a crypto billionaire…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":40445,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[64,63,128,285],"class_list":["post-40444","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-space","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-science","tag-space"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40444","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=40444"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40444\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/40445"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=40444"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=40444"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=40444"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}