Aboard his Blue Origin rocket, Jeff Bezos realizes his dream of space
Eva Deschamps / July 21, 2021
The richest man on the planet, Jeff Bezos, joined the astronaut club on Tuesday on the first manned flight for his company Blue Origin, marking another milestone for the burgeoning space tourism industry.
The richest man on the planet, American Jeff Bezos, took off for space on Tuesday aboard a Blue Origin spacecraft, according to live images provided by his space tourism company. The capsule landed a few minutes later safely in Texas.
The New Shepard booster, with a capsule atop carrying Jeff Bezos and three other passengers, lifted off from the company's space base in the Texas desert at 8:11 a.m.local time, a few minutes behind schedule, and reached space after a few minutes of ascent.
Joining Jeff Bezos on this fully autonomous flight were his brother Mark, as well as aviation pioneer Wally Funk, 82, and Blue Origin's first paying customer, 18-year-old Dutchman Oliver Daemen, who will become the oldest and youngest astronaut in history, respectively.
The mission comes nine days after the founder of Virgin Galactic, Richard Branson, also crossed the confines of the Earth's atmosphere, beating the former CEO of Amazon to the punch in this battle of the billionaires.
The founder of Amazon created Blue Origin in 2000 with the goal of one day building floating space colonies with artificial gravity where millions of people could work and live.