Glen de Vries, Who Flew Into Space With William Shatner Aboard Blue Origin, Dies in Plane Crash
US businessman Glen de Vries, who flew into space with “Star Trek” actor William Shatner on last month’s Blue Origin flight, has died in a plane crash, police said Friday.
The small aircraft came down in Hampton Township, New Jersey, about 60 miles (95 kilometers) west of New York City, shortly before 3:00pm (19:00 GMT) on Thursday, a spokesman for New Jersey state police told AFP.
“There are two confirmed fatalities,” the spokesman said, naming de Vries, 49, and 54-year-old Thomas Fischer.
“The FAA (Federal Aviation Administration) will be the lead investigating agency,” he added, without providing more details.
De Vries, the founder of clinical research platform Medidata Solutions, joined Shatner on Blue Origin’s second crewed mission on October 13.
Also on board for the 11-minute journey that took them beyond Earth’s atmosphere and back again were Blue Origin executive Audrey Powers and Planet Labs co-founder Chris Boshuizen.
“We are devastated to hear of the sudden passing of Glen de Vries,” Blue Origin said in a tweet.
“He brought so much life and energy to the entire Blue Origin team and to his fellow crewmates. His passion for aviation, his charitable work, and his dedication to his craft will long be revered and admired.”
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Science
Quantum Leap: Scientists Achieve Magic State Distillation on Logical Qubits for the First Time
Scientists have shown the elusive phenomenon of quantum computing that could create the way for fault-tolerant machines, which are much powerful than any of the supercomputers. Magic state distillation is the process which was proposed 20 years ago; however, the use of logical qubits has puzzled scientists since then. It has long been considered crucial for making high-quality resources, called magic states, required to complete the quantum computer’s potential. It has been possible on plains, till now, by which the high-quality magic states are purified so that the complex algorithms can use them. It has not been possible on the logical qubits.
According to Science Daily, the groups of physical qubits sharing the same data are configured for detecting and correcting the errors which frequently disturb the quantum computing operations. However, the scientists with QuEra said that they have demonstrated magic state distillation for the first time on logical qubits. The findings were published on July 14, 2025, in the journal Nature.
Path to Fault-tolerant Quantum Computing
Quantum computers would not be fulfilling their promise without this process. They use qubits as their building blocks and make use of quantum logic, the set of rules and operations that control how quantum information is processed for running the algorithms and processing data. It is challenging to run the complex algorithms together with maintaining amazingly low error rates.
Physical qubits are noisy, which implies that the calculations are often disrupted by factors such as temperature fluctuations and electromagnetic radiation. This is the reason why so much research has taken place on Quantum Error Correction.
With the distillation process, the faithfulness of the magic state increased for any input. This shows that the fault-tolerant magic state distillation has worked in practice. Further, it implies that the quantum computer uses both logical qubits and magic states of higher quality for running non-Clifford gates.
Scientists say that the shift has been observed for a few years. It was challenging to make the quantum computers, with the detection and correction of errors. However, the scientists have successfully done it.
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China’s Tianwen 2 probe, en route to collect samples from a near-Earth asteroid, has captured striking images of Earth and the moon shortly after launch. The snapshots, taken using the spacecraft’s narrow field of view navigation sensor, show our planet and its natural satellite as viewed from approximately 590,000 kilometers away. Launched aboard a Long March 3B rocket from Xichang on May 28, the spacecraft is now on a multi-year journey to the small asteroid Kamo’oalewa, one of Earth’s known quasi moons, where it will conduct scientific surveys and sample collection.
Tianwen 2 Probe Sends Images from Deep Space, Prepares for Asteroid Sample Return and Beyond
According to a July 1 statement from the China National Space Administration (CNSA), the Earth photo was also taken on May 30, while the moon was photographed a few hours later from approximately the same position. Tianwen 2 had been in orbit around Earth for more than a month and had already traveled more than 12 million kilometers by then. Officials have reportedly assured that the spacecraft is now in stable condition. The CNSA also shared an earlier picture of the probe’s circular solar array, also taken by an onboard engineering camera, showing the spacecraft from an angle that is seldom seen in flight.
China’s first asteroid sample-return mission, the 2nd in the Tianwen series, will reach Kamo’oalewa in July 2026. The probe will map the asteroid, collect samples, and carry them back to Earth in a capsule by late 2027, helping researchers learn more about the origins of planets and the history of the solar system.
It’s the undisturbed ingredients in the asteroid that make it so valuable, according to Han Siyuan, a deputy director at CNSA’s Lunar Exploration and Space Engineering Centre, and it likely still carries original information from the birth of the solar system, he mentioned.
China’s solar system program now has Earth’s gravity to use as a slingshot as it aims toward a chance encounter with 311P/PANSTARRS in 2035, marking another advance for China’s deep-space exploration capability after the successful orbit of Mars, achieved with Tianwen 1 in 2020.
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