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VAN HORN, Texas — The eldest daughter of pioneering U.S. astronaut Alan Shepard took a joyride to the edge of space aboard Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin rocketship on Saturday, 60 years after her late father’s famed suborbital NASA flight at the dawn of the Space Age.
Laura Shepard Churchley, 74, who was a schoolgirl when her father first streaked into space, was one of six passengers buckled into the cabin of Blue Origin’s fully autonomous New Shepard spacecraft as it lifted off from a launch site outside the west Texas town of Van Horn.
The crew capsule separated from the top of six-story-tall rocket as it soared to an altitude of at least 62 miles (100 km) before falling back to Earth to descend under a canopy of three parachutes to the desert floor for a safe landing.
The entire flight, from liftoff to touchdown, lasted just over 10 minutes, with the crew experiencing a few minutes of weightlessness at the apex of the suborbital flight.
New Shepard’s reusable rocket booster flew itself back to Earth and touched down a short distance from where the capsule landed moments later.
Bezos arrived with members of Blue Origin’s recovery team to greet and embrace the newly minted citizen astronauts as they emerged from the capsule, all smiles, in their blue flight suits. He then pinned astronaut wings to each of their collars amid a flurry of applause and cheers.
As she chatted with Bezos, Churchley briefly recounted her wonder at seeing the blackness of space from inside the capsule.
Voices of Churchley and her crewmates exclaiming excitement at the ride could be heard in audio transmissions from the capsule played during a live launch webcast by Blue Origin as the vehicle neared the climax of its flight.
The spacecraft itself is named for Alan Shepard, who in 1961 made history as the second person, and first American, to travel into space – a 15-minute suborbital flight as one of NASA’s original “Mercury Seven” astronauts. A decade later, Shepard walked on the moon as commander of the Apollo 14 mission, famously hitting two golf galls on the lunar surface.
“I kind of feel a little bit like I’m following in my father’s footsteps,” Churchley said in pre-recorded remarks before the flight. “I feel like he’s right here with me.”
Churchley was one of two honorary, non-paying guest passengers chosen by Blue Origin for Saturday’s flight. The other was Michael Strahan, 50, a retired National Football League star and co-anchor of ABC television’s “Good Morning America” show.
They were joined by four wealthy customers who paid undisclosed but presumably hefty sums for their New Shepard seats – space industry executive Dylan Taylor, engineer-investor Evan Dick, venture capitalist Lane Bess and his 23-year-old son, Cameron Bess. The Besses made history as the first parent-child pair to fly in space together, according to Blue Origin.
The flight briefly set a record for the number of humans in space at any one time – 19 total – including seven crew members and three visitors aboard the International Space Station and three Chinese taikonauts aboard their own newly build space station, according to Harvard-Smithsonian astrophysicist Jonathan McDowell.
The launch was the third space tourism flight for Blue Origin, the company formed two decades ago by Bezos – founder and executive chairman of Amazon.com Inc. It was the company’s first with a crew of six passengers.
No mention was made during the Blue Origin launch webcast of the deadly partial roof collapse at an Amazon.com warehouse struck by a tornado late on Friday in the town of Edwardsville, Illinois, or the search for people trapped in the rubble.
Bezos himself tagged along on Blue Origin’s inaugural flight in July, joining his brother, Mark Bezos, trailblazing octogenarian female aviator Wally Funk, and 18-year-old Oliver Daeman, a Dutch high school graduate and beneficiary of a $28 million auction sweepstake.
Actor William Shatner, who embodied the promise of space travel in his role as Captain James T. Kirk of the starship Enterprise on the 1960s TV series “Star Trek,” joined the second New Shepard crew in October to become the oldest person in space at age 90.
British billionaire Richard Branson beat Bezos to the punch by nine days when he rode along on the first fully crewed voyage of his own space tourism venture Virgin Galactic Holding Inc, soaring to the edge of space over New Mexico in a rocket plane released at high altitude from a carrier jet.
A third player in the burgeoning space tourism sector, fellow billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk, inaugurated his SpaceX citizen-astronaut service in September with the launch of the first all-civilian crew ever to reach Earth orbit.
Telus Corp. says it is avoiding offering “unprofitable” discounts as fierce competition in the Canadian telecommunications sector shows no sign of slowing down.
The company said Friday it had fewer net new customers during its third quarter compared with the same time last year, as it copes with increasingly “aggressive marketing and promotional pricing” that is prompting more customers to switch providers.
Telus said it added 347,000 net new customers, down around 14.5 per cent compared with last year. The figure includes 130,000 mobile phone subscribers and 34,000 internet customers, down 30,000 and 3,000, respectively, year-over-year.
The company reported its mobile phone churn rate — a metric measuring subscribers who cancelled their services — was 1.09 per cent in the third quarter, up from 1.03 per cent in the third quarter of 2023. That included a postpaid mobile phone churn rate of 0.90 per cent in its latest quarter.
Telus said its focus is on customer retention through its “industry-leading service and network quality, along with successful promotions and bundled offerings.”
“The customers we have are the most important customers we can get,” said chief financial officer Doug French in an interview.
“We’ve, again, just continued to focus on what matters most to our customers, from a product and customer service perspective, while not loading unprofitable customers.”
Meanwhile, Telus reported its net income attributable to common shares more than doubled during its third quarter.
The telecommunications company said it earned $280 million, up 105.9 per cent from the same three-month period in 2023. Earnings per diluted share for the quarter ended Sept. 30 was 19 cents compared with nine cents a year earlier.
It reported adjusted net income was $413 million, up 10.7 per cent year-over-year from $373 million in the same quarter last year. Operating revenue and other income for the quarter was $5.1 billion, up 1.8 per cent from the previous year.
Mobile phone average revenue per user was $58.85 in the third quarter, a decrease of $2.09 or 3.4 per cent from a year ago. Telus said the drop was attributable to customers signing up for base rate plans with lower prices, along with a decline in overage and roaming revenues.
It said customers are increasingly adopting unlimited data and Canada-U.S. plans which provide higher and more stable ARPU on a monthly basis.
“In a tough operating environment and relative to peers, we view Q3 results that were in line to slightly better than forecast as the best of the bunch,” said RBC analyst Drew McReynolds in a note.
Scotiabank analyst Maher Yaghi added that “the telecom industry in Canada remains very challenging for all players, however, Telus has been able to face these pressures” and still deliver growth.
The Big 3 telecom providers — which also include Rogers Communications Inc. and BCE Inc. — have frequently stressed that the market has grown more competitive in recent years, especially after the closing of Quebecor Inc.’s purchase of Freedom Mobile in April 2023.
Hailed as a fourth national carrier, Quebecor has invested in enhancements to Freedom’s network while offering more affordable plans as part of a set of commitments it was mandated by Ottawa to agree to.
The cost of telephone services in September was down eight per cent compared with a year earlier, according to Statistics Canada’s most recent inflation report last month.
“I think competition has been and continues to be, I’d say, quite intense in Canada, and we’ve obviously had to just manage our business the way we see fit,” said French.
Asked how long that environment could last, he said that’s out of Telus’ hands.
“What I can control, though, is how we go to market and how we lead with our products,” he said.
“I think the conditions within the market will have to adjust accordingly over time. We’ve continued to focus on digitization, continued to bring our cost structure down to compete, irrespective of the price and the current market conditions.”
Still, Canada’s telecom regulator continues to warn providers about customers facing more charges on their cellphone and internet bills.
On Tuesday, CRTC vice-president of consumer, analytics and strategy Scott Hutton called on providers to ensure they clearly inform their customers of charges such as early cancellation fees.
That followed statements from the regulator in recent weeks cautioning against rising international roaming fees and “surprise” price increases being found on their bills.
Hutton said the CRTC plans to launch public consultations in the coming weeks that will focus “on ensuring that information is clear and consistent, making it easier to compare offers and switch services or providers.”
“The CRTC is concerned with recent trends, which suggest that Canadians may not be benefiting from the full protections of our codes,” he said.
“We will continue to monitor developments and will take further action if our codes are not being followed.”
French said any initiative to boost transparency is a step in the right direction.
“I can’t say we are perfect across the board, but what I can say is we are absolutely taking it under consideration and trying to be the best at communicating with our customers,” he said.
“I think everyone looking in the mirror would say there’s room for improvement.”
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 8, 2024.
Companies in this story: (TSX:T)
CALGARY – TC Energy Corp. has lowered the estimated cost of its Southeast Gateway pipeline project in Mexico.
It says it now expects the project to cost between US$3.9 billion and US$4.1 billion compared with its original estimate of US$4.5 billion.
The change came as the company reported a third-quarter profit attributable to common shareholders of C$1.46 billion or $1.40 per share compared with a loss of C$197 million or 19 cents per share in the same quarter last year.
Revenue for the quarter ended Sept. 30 totalled C$4.08 billion, up from C$3.94 billion in the third quarter of 2023.
TC Energy says its comparable earnings for its latest quarter amounted to C$1.03 per share compared with C$1.00 per share a year earlier.
The average analyst estimate had been for a profit of 95 cents per share, according to LSEG Data & Analytics.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 7, 2024.
Companies in this story: (TSX:TRP)
The Canadian Press. All rights reserved.
BCE Inc. reported a loss in its latest quarter as it recorded $2.11 billion in asset impairment charges, mainly related to Bell Media’s TV and radio properties.
The company says its net loss attributable to common shareholders amounted to $1.24 billion or $1.36 per share for the quarter ended Sept. 30 compared with a profit of $640 million or 70 cents per share a year earlier.
On an adjusted basis, BCE says it earned 75 cents per share in its latest quarter compared with an adjusted profit of 81 cents per share in the same quarter last year.
“Bell’s results for the third quarter demonstrate that we are disciplined in our pursuit of profitable growth in an intensely competitive environment,” BCE chief executive Mirko Bibic said in a statement.
“Our focus this quarter, and throughout 2024, has been to attract higher-margin subscribers and reduce costs to help offset short-term revenue impacts from sustained competitive pricing pressures, slow economic growth and a media advertising market that is in transition.”
Operating revenue for the quarter totalled $5.97 billion, down from $6.08 billion in its third quarter of 2023.
BCE also said it now expects its revenue for 2024 to fall about 1.5 per cent compared with earlier guidance for an increase of zero to four per cent.
The company says the change comes as it faces lower-than-anticipated wireless product revenue and sustained pressure on wireless prices.
BCE added 33,111 net postpaid mobile phone subscribers, down 76.8 per cent from the same period last year, which was the company’s second-best performance on the metric since 2010.
It says the drop was driven by higher customer churn — a measure of subscribers who cancelled their service — amid greater competitive activity and promotional offer intensity. BCE’s monthly churn rate for the category was 1.28 per cent, up from 1.1 per cent during its previous third quarter.
The company also saw 11.6 per cent fewer gross subscriber activations “due to more targeted promotional offers and mobile device discounting compared to last year.”
Bell’s wireless mobile phone average revenue per user was $58.26, down 3.4 per cent from $60.28 in the third quarter of the prior year.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 7, 2024.
Companies in this story: (TSX:BCE)
The Canadian Press. All rights reserved.
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