Blue Origin plans to focus on developing its human lunar capabilities, so it won’t send tourists to space for at least the next two years. This means we won’t see any New Shepard launches for quite some time. Blue Origin is one of the companies that NASA has selected to develop human landing systems for its Artemis program with SpaceX. Specifically, it will serve on landers for the Artemis III and Artemis V missions.
The company was originally contracted to build the human landing system that would transfer astronauts from NASA’s Gateway Station to the Moon’s south pole region for the Artemis V mission. But last year, after SpaceX experienced delays due to failed tests of Starship, NASA asked Blue Origin to design an alternative lander for Artemis III. Artemis III is expected to be the first crewed moon landing mission of the program, and the Trump administration wants it to happen before the end of the president’s term.
New Shepard takes tourists into suborbital space, where they experience weightlessness for a few minutes before the spacecraft returns to Earth. Jeff Bezos was one of the passengers on New Shepard’s first tourist flight in 2021. Since then, it has taken off and landed 37 times and carried 98 passengers, including Katy Perry and William Shatner, to the Karman Line.
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