![]() Bezos said Blue Origin has not determined its pace of flights after that but is approaching $100 million in private sales. We need to do that to solve the problems here on Earth."īlue Origin plans for two more New Shepard passenger flights this year. ![]() "We're going to build a road to space so that our kids and their kids can build a future," Bezos added. The two flights give credibility and inject enthusiasm into the fledgling commercial space tourism industry, which Swiss bank UBS estimates will be worth $3 billion annually in a decade.īezos, who founded Blue Origin in 2000, said this first crewed space flight was a step toward developing a fleet of reusable spacecraft. The flight came nine days after Briton Richard Branson was aboard his competing space tourism venture Virgin Galactic's successful inaugural suborbital flight from New Mexico. "I want to thank every Amazon employee and every Amazon customer, because you guys paid for all of this," Bezos told reporters afterward. Pioneering woman aviator Wally Funk, 82, and recent high school graduate Oliver Daemen, 18, became the oldest and youngest people to reach space. The fully autonomous 60-foot-tall (18.3-meters-tall) gleaming white spacecraft, with a feather design on its side, ignited its BE-3 engine for a vertical liftoff from Blue Origin's Launch Site One facility about 20 miles (32 km) outside the rural town of Van Horn under mostly clear skies.īezos, founder of ecommerce company Inc (AMZN.O), and his brother Mark Bezos, a private equity executive, were joined by two others. "Astronaut Bezos in my seat - happy, happy, happy," Bezos told mission control during a safety check after the passengers buckled back in following a few minutes of weightlessness in space. After landing, Bezos and his crewmates exchanged hugs and popped champagne while roughly two dozen family members and company employees cheered. The 57-year-old American billionaire, donning a blue flight suit and cowboy hat, took a trip to the edge of space lasting 10 minutes and 10 seconds. "Best day ever," Bezos, accompanied by three crewmates including the world's oldest and youngest space travelers, said after his capsule descended with three large parachutes and touched down, kicking up a cloud of dust. ![]() ![]() Some information in this report comes from AP.VAN HORN, Texas, July 20 (Reuters) - Jeff Bezos, the world's richest person, soared some 66.5 miles (107 km) above the Texas desert aboard his company Blue Origin's New Shepard launch vehicle on Tuesday and returned safely to Earth, a historic suborbital flight that helps usher in a new era of space tourism. astronaut to orbit the Earth - that will send both manned and unmanned vehicles into space. The company is also building a larger rocket, New Glenn - named after John Glenn, the first U.S. Bob Smith, the company’s chief executive officer, says two more manned missions aboard New Shepard are planned by the end of this year. Daemen’s father was a runner-up in the auction, which makes the young astronaut Blue Origin’s first paying customer.īezos, a fervent space enthusiast since watching the Apollo lunar missions in his youth, made his trip on the 52nd anniversary of the historic Apollo 11 lunar landing.ĭuring a television interview Monday, Bezos insisted that his goal was not about competition with Branson, but “about building a road to space so that future generations can do incredible things in space.”īlue Origin’s first manned mission comes after 15 test flights of the New Shepard vehicle. The Dutch-born Daemen was a last-minute addition to the crew after the anonymous winner of a $28 million auction for a seat on New Shepard dropped out, citing a scheduling conflict. Blue Origin announced July 15, 2021, that the Dutch teen would be traveling on its July 20 space launch in west Texas.īezos was joined by his brother, Mark, plus 82-year-old aviation pioneer Mary Wallace “Wally” Funk and 18-year-old Oliver Daemen, making them the oldest and youngest persons to fly into space.įunk was one of the so-called Mercury 13, group of women who were part of a privately funded program to train women for space travel. This undated family photo shows Oliver Daemen.
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