"The progress Blue Origin has made on its suborbital and orbital capabilities really is encouraging for the overall future of human spaceflight," Ed Mango of NASA said in a press release. "It was awesome to see a spacecraft NASA played a role in developing take flight."
The "pusher" escape system is designed to allow for the crew to escape in case of an emergency at any time before Blue Origin's planned spacecraft reaches orbit. One interesting aspect of the design is that unlike NASA's classic spacecraft designs, this emergency system will provide full reusability for Blue Origin's vehicle.
"The use of a pusher configuration marks a significant departure from the traditional towed-tractor escape tower concepts of Mercury and Apollo," said Rob Meyerson, president and program manager of Blue Origin in the release. "Providing crew escape without the need to jettison the unused escape system gets us closer to our goal of safe and affordable human spaceflight."
This is yet another positive note for NASA's successful Commercial Crew Program, its partnership with commercial spaceflight companies to develop private manned spaceflight capabilities that can be contracted by NASA for future missions. Earlier this month, the CCP scored another major success when the SpaceX Dragon capsule successfully docked at the International Space Station with cargo for the crew.
