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Geek Wire
7 hours ago
- Science
- Geek Wire
‘We did it!' Globe-spanning travelers take a quick space trip on Blue Origin rocket ship
Blue Origin's New Shepard rocket ship rises spaceward from its Texas launch pad, as seen from a drone hovering above. (Blue Origin via YouTube) Six well-traveled adventurers rode Blue Origin's suborbital rocket ship to go where they've never gone before: the edge of space. The 10-minute mission lifted off from the Kent, Wash.-based company's Launch Site One in West Texas at 8:39 a.m. CT (6:39 a.m. PT) today. This was Blue Origin's 32nd New Shepard suborbital launch and its 12th crewed mission. New Shepard's booster sent the crew capsule to a height of about 104 kilometers (64.4 miles, or 339,800 feet) — just beyond the 100-kilometer (62-mile) altitude that marks the internationally accepted boundary of space. After separation, the reusable booster descended to a landing pad under autonomous control. Meanwhile, the spacefliers experienced a few minutes of weightlessness and got an astronaut's-eye view of Earth beneath a black sky. At the end of the ride, the capsule made a parachute-aided descent to the rangeland surrounding the launch site. Since 2021, Jeff Bezos' Blue Origin space venture has flown 64 suborbital space travelers, including 'Star Trek' captain William Shatner and Bezos himself. A previous New Shepard flight in April sent up an all-female crew including pop superstar Katy Perry, CBS morning-show host Gayle King and Lauren Sanchez, a helicopter pilot and journalist who is Bezos' fiancée. That mission generated celebrity buzz as well as backlash. The lineup for the NS-32 mission included: Jaime Alemán , a Panamanian attorney, business executive and former ambassador to the U.S. Blue Origin says this flight will make Alemán the first person to travel to all 193 U.N.-recognized member states, the North and South Poles and outer space. , a Panamanian attorney, business executive and former ambassador to the U.S. Blue Origin says this flight will make Alemán the first person to travel to all 193 U.N.-recognized member states, the North and South Poles and outer space. Gretchen Green , a radiologist specializing in women's imaging with more than 20 years of clinical experience. She's an alumna of Space Camp and now serves on the U.S. Space & Rocket Center Education Foundation Board. , a radiologist specializing in women's imaging with more than 20 years of clinical experience. She's an alumna of Space Camp and now serves on the U.S. Space & Rocket Center Education Foundation Board. Paul Jeris , a real estate developer and entrepreneur based in Ohio. He has visited more than 149 countries so far and says he aims to see every nation. 'You guys, we did it!' he said after touchdown. , a real estate developer and entrepreneur based in Ohio. He has visited more than 149 countries so far and says he aims to see every nation. 'You guys, we did it!' he said after touchdown. Aymette (Amy) Medina Jorge , a high-school and middle-school STEM teacher at Odyssey Academy in Galveston, Texas. She has led more than 60 space experiments and zero-gravity projects. She was born in Puerto Rico, and her seat is sponsored by Farmacias Similares, a Mexican company that's committed to social impact and accessible health care across Latin America. , a high-school and middle-school STEM teacher at Odyssey Academy in Galveston, Texas. She has led more than 60 space experiments and zero-gravity projects. She was born in Puerto Rico, and her seat is sponsored by Farmacias Similares, a Mexican company that's committed to social impact and accessible health care across Latin America. Mark Rocket , an entrepreneur and tech leader from New Zealand. He's the CEO of Kea Aerospace and the president of Aerospace New Zealand. He was a seed investor in Rocket Lab, where he served as co-director from 2007 to 2011. , an entrepreneur and tech leader from New Zealand. He's the CEO of Kea Aerospace and the president of Aerospace New Zealand. He was a seed investor in Rocket Lab, where he served as co-director from 2007 to 2011. Jesse Williams, a Canadian entrepreneur and adventurer who has reached the summits of six of the seven highest peaks on Earth, including Mount Everest and Antarctica's Mount Vinson. In addition to the travelers, Blue Origin's crew capsule carried more than 1,000 postcards that were sent in by students as part of an educational campaign organized by the Club for the Future, the company's nonprofit foundation.
Geek Wire
a day ago
- Science
- Geek Wire
Watch six globe-spanning travelers take a quick space trip on Blue Origin rocket ship
The lineup for Blue Origin's 12th crewed New Shepard suborbital space mission includes, from left, Paul Jeris, Jaime Alemán, Gretchen Green, Aymette Medina Jorge, Mark Rocket and Jesse Williams. (Blue Origin Photo) Six well-traveled adventurers are due to go where they've never gone before when Jeff Bezos' Blue Origin space venture sends them on a suborbital space trip. The mission, expected to last about 10 minutes, is due for liftoff from Blue Origin's Launch Site One in West Texas as early as 8:30 a.m. CT (6:30 a.m. PT) Saturday. Blue Origin plans to stream coverage of the mission via its website, starting at T-minus-30 minutes. This will be Blue Origin's 32nd New Shepard suborbital launch, and its 12th crewed mission. The flight plan for the NS-32 mission calls for New Shepard's booster to send the crew capsule beyond the 100-kilometer (62-mile) altitude that marks the internationally accepted boundary of space. After separation, the reusable booster is designed to descend to a landing pad under autonomous control. Meanwhile, the spacefliers will experience a few minutes of weightlessness and get an astronaut's-eye view of Earth beneath a black sky. At the end of the ride, the capsule will make a parachute-aided descent to the rangeland surrounding the launch site. Since 2021, Blue Origin has flown 58 suborbital space travelers, including 'Star Trek' captain William Shatner and Jeff Bezos himself. The most recent New Shepard flight, in April, sent up an all-female crew including pop superstar Katy Perry, CBS morning-show host Gayle King and Lauren Sanchez, a helicopter pilot and journalist who is Bezos' fiancée. That mission generated celebrity buzz as well as backlash. The lineup for the NS-32 mission includes: Jaime Alemán , a Panamanian attorney, business executive and former ambassador to the U.S. Blue Origin says this flight will make Alemán the first person to travel to all 193 U.N.-recognized member states, the North and South Poles and outer space. , a Panamanian attorney, business executive and former ambassador to the U.S. Blue Origin says this flight will make Alemán the first person to travel to all 193 U.N.-recognized member states, the North and South Poles and outer space. Gretchen Green , a radiologist specializing in women's imaging with more than 20 years of clinical experience. She's an alumna of Space Camp and now serves on the U.S. Space & Rocket Center Education Foundation Board. , a radiologist specializing in women's imaging with more than 20 years of clinical experience. She's an alumna of Space Camp and now serves on the U.S. Space & Rocket Center Education Foundation Board. Paul Jeris , a real estate developer and entrepreneur based in Ohio. He has visited more than 149 countries so far and says he aims to see every nation. , a real estate developer and entrepreneur based in Ohio. He has visited more than 149 countries so far and says he aims to see every nation. Aymette (Amy) Medina Jorge , a high-school and middle-school STEM teacher at Odyssey Academy in Galveston, Texas. She has led more than 60 space experiments and zero-gravity projects. She was born in Puerto Rico, and her seat is sponsored by Farmacias Similares, a Mexican company that's committed to social impact and accessible health care across Latin America. , a high-school and middle-school STEM teacher at Odyssey Academy in Galveston, Texas. She has led more than 60 space experiments and zero-gravity projects. She was born in Puerto Rico, and her seat is sponsored by Farmacias Similares, a Mexican company that's committed to social impact and accessible health care across Latin America. Mark Rocket , an entrepreneur and tech leader from New Zealand. He's the CEO of Kea Aerospace and the president of Aerospace New Zealand. He was a seed investor in Rocket Lab, where he served as co-director from 2007 to 2011. , an entrepreneur and tech leader from New Zealand. He's the CEO of Kea Aerospace and the president of Aerospace New Zealand. He was a seed investor in Rocket Lab, where he served as co-director from 2007 to 2011. Jesse Williams, a Canadian entrepreneur and adventurer who has reached the summits of six of the seven highest peaks on Earth, including Mount Everest and Antarctica's Mount Vinson. Saturday's scheduled launch could be delayed due to weather concerns or technical issues. We'll be updating this report with further developments. Blue Origin is also providing online updates
Fast Company
a day ago
- Business
- Fast Company
Walgreens buyout could change the future of pharmacy care
Pharmacies are more than just stores. They're vital links between people and their healthcare. One of us, Patrick, witnessed this firsthand in 2003 while working as a pharmacy technician at Walgreens in a midsize West Texas town. Each day involved handling hundreds of prescriptions as they moved through the system—meticulously counting pills, deciphering doctors' handwriting, and sorting out confusing insurance issues. The experience revealed that how pharmacies are owned and managed is as much a public health issue as it is a financial one. Fast-forward to today, and Walgreens—one of the world's largest pharmacy chains, which filled nearly 800 million U.S. prescriptions in 2024 —is at a turning point. In March, the company announced it would be acquired by private equity firm Sycamore Partners for $10 billion, just 10% of its peak market value. That deal takes the storied pharmacy chain off the public market for the first time in nearly 100 years. We're professors who study the intersection of medicine and business, and we think this deal offers a window into the future of pharmacy care. It matters not just to pharmacists but also to the tens of millions of Americans who rely on outlets like Walgreens to meet their everyday health needs. The rise and struggles of Walgreens A lot has changed in the pharmacy industry since 1901, when Charles R. Walgreen Sr. purchased the Chicago drugstore where he served as a pharmacist. The company went public in 1927, expanded rapidly throughout the 20th century and grew to 8,000 stores by 2013. By 2014, a merger with the European pharmacy chain Alliance Boots made Walgreens one of the largest pharmacy chains in the world. More recently, however, the picture for the pharmacy industry hasn't been so rosy. Labor costs have risen. Front-end retail sales (things like snacks, greeting cards, and cosmetics) have fallen. And financial pressures from pharmacy benefit managers —those third-party groups that manage the cost of prescription drug benefits on the behalf of insurers—have grown. All of these things have significantly constrained revenues across the industry, leading stores to shutter. Some estimates suggest that as many as one-third of U.S. retail pharmacies have closed since 2010. Against that backdrop, Sycamore Partners' March acquisition of Walgreens raises big questions. What does Sycamore see in this investment, and what might their strategies imply about the future of American pharmacy care? Framing the private equity bet Private equity firms typically buy companies, streamline their operations, and seek to sell them for a profit within five to seven years of the acquisition. This growing movement of private equity into the global economy is by no means limited to healthcare. In 2020, private equity firms employed 11.7 million U.S. workers, or about 7% of the country's total workforce. The total assets under management by such investors have grown by over 11% annually over the past two decades, a trend that's expected to continue. In looking at Walgreens, Sycamore, like many of these businesses, likely sees an opportunity to buy low, cut costs and improve profitability. One survey of private equity investors found that the most common self-reported sources of value creation in these deals for companies of Sycamore's size were changing the product and marketing it more robustly to drive demand, changing incentives for those within the business, and facilitating a high-value exit. While private owners may have more patience than public markets, critics argue that private equity firms tend to have a short-term focus, looking for quick, predictable services of margin improvement—like, for example, cutting jobs. There's some evidence in favor of that claim. One study found that employment often drops in the years following a private equity buyout. And if the focus shifts to repaying debt or prepping for resale, long-term projects, such as investing in future innovation, can get deprioritized. The history of privatized public companies offers a mix of successes and failures. Dell Technologies and hotel chain Hilton are two prominent examples of companies that went private, restructured successfully, and came back stronger. In those cases, going private helped management focus without the constant pressure of quarterly earnings reports. On the other hand, companies such as Toys R Us, which was taken private in 2005 and filed for bankruptcy in 2018, show how high debt and missed innovation can lead to collapse. What's next for Walgreens If part of the returns will be driven by 'buying low' (the easiest indicator of potential future success to measure as of today) Sycamore started well: Its purchase price represents a mere 8% premium over the market trading value on the day of the announcement, significantly less than the 46% seen across industries in 2023. That said, Sycamore financed 83.4% of the purchase with debt, a number on the high end for these kinds of transactions. Healthcare groups have pointed to this number while raising concerns that innovation-focused investments may take a back seat to debt obligations. As the dust settles on the purchase, Sycamore has indicated an interest in splitting Walgreens into three business units: one focused on U.S. pharmacies, one on U.K. pharmacies, and one on U.S. primary healthcare through its VillageMD subsidiary. That's not unusual: Sycamore has used a similar approach before with its investment in the office supply retailer Staples, a strategy that has garnered strong financial returns but been called into question for its long-term sustainability. Given the significant financial challenges VillageMD has faced since its acquisition by Walgreens, this represents an opportunity to separately evaluate and optimize its performance. Meanwhile, Sycamore's historic focus on retail and customer-focused businesses might help it modernize the in-store experience or optimize staffing. For more than a century, Walgreens has survived and adapted to sweeping changes in retail. Now, it's entering a new chapter—one that could reshape not just its own future but the role of pharmacies in American life. Will Sycamore help Walgreens thrive, using its resources to strengthen services and deliver more value to customers? Or will pressure to generate quick returns create problems? Either way, the answer matters—not just for investors but for anyone who's ever relied on their neighborhood pharmacy to stay healthy.
Yahoo
2 days ago
- General
- Yahoo
Permian Basin Veterans Honored in D.C.
SAN ANGELO, Texas (Concho Valley Homepage) —Nearly 100 West Texas veterans recently traveled to Washington, D.C., on a three-day journey to visit the memorials built in their honor — a trip filled with reflection, remembrance and healing, made possible by the nonprofit Permian Basin Honor Flight. The organization, based in West Texas, provides all-expenses-paid trips to Washington for local veterans to see the Korean War Veterans Memorial, Vietnam Veterans Memorial, World War II Memorial, and other sites of national significance. Veterans visited a total of 14 memorials and museums over the course of the trip. Wesley Smith, who took over as flight director in 2023, said the program's goal is simple: to give these heroes the recognition and gratitude they deserve while there's still time. 'The Honor Flight is for us to bring those war heroes to this memorial, to the Korean Memorial, to the Vietnam Memorial before it's too late — to honor them and serve them and show them the respect that they so deserve, and to show them the world is changing,' Smith said. 'It's not going to be the same world these Vietnam vets came home to. And to show the Korean War vets they're never going to be forgotten. The history books tell them it's the 'forgotten war,' but it's not…' Smith has been involved with the Honor Flight team since 2015 and served as board president from 2018 to 2019. 'absolutely love getting to lead men and women heroes to care for them and honor them with the upmost respect that they deserve,' he said. The trip is made possible entirely through community fundraising and sponsorships. Each veteran's flight, lodging, meals, and transportation cost about $2,000 — none of which is charged to the veteran. 'So we have to raise that money all year long or these vets don't get to come up here,' Smith said. 'The last thing we want to do is say, 'Hey, you've been selected for a beautiful trip, but you owe us money.' And we're not going to do that. So it takes a community — it takes all community efforts to bring this together and make this happen The emotional impact of the trip was evident in conversations with veterans and their guardians. 'Going through this and being out here and how therapeutic it is — and getting to kinda rehash some of the things and let some of the emotions out that maybe you've held up a long time — is great,' said Danny Davis of Midland, who volunteered as a guardian for the trip. 'To the workers, I would say thank you. Thank you from the bottom of my heart. I'm so grateful I was chosen for this flight, and I've enjoyed it,' said Trinand, a Vietnam veteran on the trip. 'The personnel, the people — our friends. They are my friends. We're brothers because of the war, but now we're friends because we have met.' For some, the visit to the memorials brought back powerful memories — and a sense of closure. 'I would suggest that they all come here and visit the memorials,' said Vietnam veteran William Tolbert. 'I'm thoroughly enjoying it, and I wouldn't want to come here in the summertime, but it's really impressive.' 'Oh man, this trip has been awesome — just honoring our vets that set the pace for us, you know, led the way,' said Army veteran Manuel Payan. 'It's an honor just to be around them. And it's great to just make new friends, especially with people like that that served.' In addition to moments of solemn reflection, the trip also included time for connection and celebration — from dancing to storytelling — as veterans connected and made new memories together. The Permian Basin Honor Flight continues its mission through year-round fundraising to ensure future generations of veterans receive the honor and healing they've earned. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
CNET
2 days ago
- Science
- CNET
Blue Origin's Next Space Launch Is Saturday: Here's How to Stream and What to Know
Blue Origin has been on a roll in 2025 with multiple successful launches already, and its next one is coming up on Saturday. The NS-32 mission will take six people into suborbital space for a quick jaunt before returning back to Earth. It's the third such New Shepard mission in 2025 so far, and the 32nd in total. The prior launch famously included an all-female crew featuring pop star Katy Perry, TV personality Gayle King, and journalist Lauren Sanchez. This mission is set to launch from Blue Origin's Launch Site One location in West Texas at 9:30 a.m. ET on May 31. Like the prior New Shepard missions, NS-32 will take its six crew members above the Kármán line — the internationally recognized boundary between Earth and space — to suborbital space for about 11 minutes before landing back on Earth. During the mission, the crew will experience the weightlessness of space while also getting an excellent view of the Earth. How to watch the NS-32 launch The launch will be webcast on Blue Origin's website with coverage starting 30 minutes before the launch, so 9 a.m. ET. If this launch coverage is the same as previous ones, the webcast will cover the launch itself, the entire flight, and the landing. Prior launches also included interviews with the crew to get their initial thoughts on going to space, which we expect will be included with the NS-32 webcast. Read more: SpaceX Loses Contact With Starship in Third Test Flight Failure in a Row If you miss the launch, you can still watch it later. The company posts all of its previous NS missions on its YouTube channel, typically within the same day as the launch. The New Shepard capsule is pressurized and climate controlled with window seats for all passengers Blue Origin What rocket is NS-32 using? NS-32 will be using the New Shepard rocket, like every other NS mission. This rocket is known for being fully reusable, with a small capsule at the top with room for all six passengers. Blue Origin says the vehicle is fully autonomous. It will launch, fly, and eventually land with no pilots, which is why none of the NS missions feature a human pilot. The rocket saw its first crewed launch in 2021 when Jeff Bezos famously took part in the flight. The crew includes a mixture of entrepreneurs and educators. Blue Origins Who is the NS-32 crew? Typically, Blue Origin crews have featured people from all walks of life, including teachers, business people, and celebrities. The NS-32 crew is no different, although it lacks the celebrity flair of the prior NS-31 mission. The crew includes: Paul Jeris Jeris is a real estate developer and entrepreneur. He has visited 149 countries and is looking to add space to his list of places visited. Jesse Williams Williams is a Canadian entrepreneur and the current CEO of Car History Group. He has climbed six of the seven highest peaks on Earth. Aymette (Amy) Medina Jorge Jorge is a high school and middle school teacher focusing on STEM subjects. She's the 2023 AIAA and Challenger Center Trailblazing STEM Educator Award winner. Dr. Gretchen Green Green is a radiologist specializing in women's imaging and has over 20 years of experience. Among her many accolades, she now serves on the US Space & Rocket Center Education Foundation Board. Jaime Alemán Alemán is a Panamanian attorney and businessman who also served as ambassador to the US. He also serves on the Special Olympics International's Board of Directors, Duke Law School's Board of Visitors, and the Woodrow Wilson's Latin America Board. Jaime will also be the first person ever to visit all 193 UN-recognized countries, the North and South Poles, and space. Mark Rocket The aptly named Rocket is an entrepreneur from New Zealand. He serves as CEO of Kea Aerospace and as the President of Aerospace New Zealand, furthering the country's interests in aerospace.
