Jeff Bezos’ spaceflight company Blue Origin performed another test of its New Shepard rocket in West Texas yesterday, this time with an updated, big-windowed crew capsule. On board that capsule? A test dummy dubbed “Mannequin Skywalker”.
Image: Photo
You know… like Anakin Skywalker? From Star Wars? Get it? OK.
Bezos may be a vampiric oligarch but a good pun is a good pun. On Twitter, Bezos said the dummy, which spent 10 minutes in near orbital flight, had “a great ride”.
#NewShepard had a successful first flight of Crew Capsule 2.0 today. Complete with windows and our instrumented test dummy. He had a great ride. @BlueOrigin pic.twitter.com/PZHXWXjuw9
— Jeff Bezos (@JeffBezos) December 13, 2017
The International Space Station – which Blue Origin rockets have yet to dock with – plans to screen Star Wars: The Last Jedi soon. If Mr Skywalker plans to attend he’d have better luck flying with SpaceX.