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CHICAGO -- At least 30 people have been shot, four fatally, in shootings across Chicago since Friday night, police said. After being struck by a car Friday evening while riding a scooter in South Shore, a man tried to run but was gunned down by an occupant of the Hyundai Sonata that collided with him, Chicago police said. Two men were shot, one fatally, near a CTA Red Line stop on the Near South Side early Saturday morning, police said. A person was found shot to death inside a car early Sunday in Englewood on the South Side. The person...

Blue Origin launched its 23rd New Shepard rocket mission this morning, featuring science payloads designed for experimentation. The mission needed early, however, after it was aborted during the first ascent stage of the rocket, prompting the abort process to take over and firing the parachutes on the capsule, which drifted back to Earth shortly after take-off. This was not a crewed mission, so there was no one on board the capsule, though it is the same vehicle that the company uses for its private spaceflight tourist missions. This marks the first time ever that Blue Origin has encountered a problem...

Legendary Star Trek actor William Shatner is set to become the oldest man ever in space as part of the second crew to travel with Jeff Bezos' Blue Origin. The 90-year-old actor will take off in the New Shepard capsule in October for a 15-minute civilian flight, according to TMZ. The Blue Origin flight will be recorded for a documentary that was rejected by Discovery and is now being negotiated by Shatner's team somewhere else.

As we all know on July 20, Blue Origin successfully made a flight to the edge of orbit, making Jeff Bezos one of the first two billionaires to go to space. This seems to be the resounding success of Blue Origin so far. However, after the billionaire space founder came back to Earth, the company's internal affairs became chaotic, many key engineers and leaders decided to leave the company.At least 17 key leaders and senior engineers have left Blue Origin this summer, with many moving on in the weeks after Bezos’ spaceflight.Two of the engineers, Nitin Arora and Lauren Lyons,...

Thrill-seeking billionaire Richard Branson has reached space aboard his own winged rocket ship in his boldest adventure yet. The feat vaults the nearly 71-year-old Branson past fellow billionaire and rival Jeff Bezos, who is planning to fly to space in a craft of his own nine days from now. With about 500 people watching, including Branson’s wife, children and grandchildren, a twin-fuselage aircraft with his space plane attached underneath took off in the first stage of the flight. Aboard were Branson and five crewmates from his Virgin Galactic space-tourism company.

"The excursion will be livestreamed by Blue Origin starting at 7:30 a.m. ET." If he comes back and only says, "IT'S FLAT!," and then walks away, it would be the single greatest troll of all time.

So, tomorrow at 9:00am EDT, the Blue Origin New Sheppard is planned to launch into the West Texas skies, carrying its first human passengers to the edge of space. The question is: will the world's richest man, Jeff Besos, pull off this stunt as fellow billionaire Sir Richard Branson did a few days ago? He's supposed to go higher than Branson did, not to mention that he'll be accompanied by both the world's oldest (82) and youngest (18) people to go into space.

Jeff Bezos announced on Monday that he and his brother will join the first crewed spaceflight from his private rocket company on July 20 — just 15 days after he is set to step down as chief executive of Amazon. "Ever since I was five years old, I’ve dreamed of traveling to space," he wrote in an Instagram post. "On July 20th, I will take that journey with my brother. The greatest adventure, with my best friend." In May, the Amazon founder's rocket company, Blue Origin, announced that its first flight aboard its New Shepard rocket, designed to carry up...

Explanation: The International Space Station is the largest object ever constructed by humans in space. The station perimeter extends over roughly the area of a football field, although only a small fraction of this is composed of modules habitable by humans. The station is so large that it could not be launched all at once -- it continues to be built piecemeal. To function, the ISS needs huge trusses, some over 15 meters long and with masses over 10,000 kilograms, to keep it rigid and to route electricity and liquid coolants. Pictured above, the immense space station was photographed from...

Remember when Blue Origin made history by vertically landing a rocket after launching it into space? Remember when they reused that same rocket and then landed it again? Well, today Jeff Bezos’ rocket company, once again, launched that very same New Shepard rocket and successfully landed it for a third time. At 11:28 AM EST, Bezos announced the successful landing of the New Shepard suborbital rocket as well as the crew capsule that it was carrying into space. While the rocket will eventually be used for crewed missions, there were no humans on this flight. Unlike previous launches where the...

On April 7, Blue Origin President Rob Meyerson said that the space company founded by Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos would be conducting its first unmanned test flights “later this year.” As it turns out, “later this year” meant “three weeks.” The company has announced that it had conducted the first flight of its New Shepard space vehicle yesterday. The propulsion module, powered by Blue Origin’s BE-3 rocket engine, took the New Shepard space capsule up to a speed of over Mach 3. The capsule then separated from the propulsion module and flew to an altitude of 307,000 feet before beginning...