It looked like they were going about 15-16mph when they hit the ground. That looked a bit rough as well. They seem to have done fine, but I can't imagine that it was comfortable.
Bezos mentioned there's a pocket of air that forms a cushion underneath just before it hits, slowing it to 1 mph at impact. The older woman said she didn't even feel it.
Interesting. As other said, there were retro-rockets that fired. I guess I was just assuming the retro-rockets would be more pronounced - like the gentle landing that the rocket motors perform. Good to know that this wasn't as jarring as it looked.
Re:Blue Origin first human flight
by dredmorbius on Tuesday July 20, 2021 @01:28PM
(#27896607)
That's roughly the speed of a Soyuz landing, which has been described as a "low speed car crash".
Retrorockets fire immediately prior to impact to cushion the blow, but it's still a hard jolt.
I watch it and slowed the clip and it seems there's a rocket boost just before touchdown, if the seats have shock absorbers they probably felt little of the touch down.
The booster landing looks pretty amazing. The capsule landing went without a problem. The deceleration when the braking chutes deployed looks a bit fast, from 205mph to 150mph in couple seconds. Must be hard on the body.
Edit: Ok, in the post-flight briefing, they mentioned that they didn't anticipate the 5G deceleration on descent and it was pretty hard. Must be when the braking chute was deployed.