Blue Origin Sells NASA Artificial Gravity to Simulate the Moon

A mock up of the Blue Origin New Shepard system in 2017.

Photographer: Matthew Staver/Bloomberg
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Jeff Bezos’s Blue Origin LLC will provide NASA with a research environment to help simulate gravity conditions on the moon, rotating its New Shepard spacecraft 11 times a minute on suborbital flights starting late next year.

Whenever humans return to the lunar surface for an extended period, its unique gravity -- one-sixth of Earth’s -- will be one of multiple hurdles NASA has to master.