Gary Lai is speaking for Blue Origin, describing the New Shepherd program. “Famous for being quiet.” Keeps their marketing and PR budget small. Also have a culture in the company to focus on results, rather than plans. When flight milestones are hit, they’ll discuss results in detail. This conference is the first in which any Blue employee has presented details to the public. Chose this conference because it is a market that (unlike tourism) must be built up. Also see opportunities for customers during flight test, when they won’t even have crew aboard. Company’s focus is on human spaceflight and launch. Everything they develop is planned to be fully reusable. Obsessive about human factors and safety systems, with emphasis on frequent launch operations.

Two locations: Kent, WA, and Culberson County, Texas (about two hours drive from El Paso). Only dedicated launch facility (no other users) in the US. On large rangeland, one of the least populated counties in the US. Been flying for about three years.

Vehicle designed for three or more astronauts to suborbital altitudes. Two separate vehicles — propulsion module and crew capsule, separate before entry. Both fully reusable and optimized for fast turnaround with small crew. Crew escape capability with abort propulsion system in crew module. Early prototype of propulsion module named Goddard, and final design may not look like that.

Showing chart of payload accommodation (comm, power, mass, windows, data interfaces, mechanical interfaces, microgee levels, etc.) Can offer both pressurized tended payloads, and mouts for external environment. They’ve selected three experiments to fly, and provided payload user guides to the experiment teams.