Blue Origin launches Jeff Bezos into space on 1st passenger flight

Jeff Bezos blasted into space on his rocket companys first flight with people on board becoming the second billionaire in just over a week to ride his own spacecraftThe Amazon founder was accompanied by a handpicked group his brother an 18yearold from the Netherlands and an 82yearold aviation pioneer from Texas the youngest and oldest to ever fly in space Named after Americas first astronaut Blue Origins New Shepard rocket soared from remote West Texas on the 52nd anniversary of the Apollo 11 moon landing a date chosen by Bezos for its historical significanceHe held fast to it even as Virgin Galactics Richard Branson pushed up his own flight from New Mexico in the race for space tourist dollars and beat him to space by nine days Unlike Bransons piloted rocket plane Bezos capsule was completely automated and required no official staff on board for the anticipated 10minute upanddown flightBlue Origin was shooting for an altitude of roughly 66 miles 106 kilometers more than 10 miles 16 kilometers higher than Bransons July 11 ride The 60foot 18meter booster accelerated to Mach 3 or three times the speed of sound to get the capsule high enough before separating and aiming for a vertical landingThe passengers were expected to get three to four minutes of weightlessness to float around the spacious white capsule Then the windowfilled capsule was going to head to a parachute touchdown on the desert floor with Bezos and his guests briefly experiencing nearly six times the force of gravity or 6 Gs on the way backSharing Bezos dreamcometrue adventure was Wally Funk from the Dallas area one of 13 female pilots who went through the same tests as NASAs allmale astronaut corps in the early 1960s but never made it into space Joining them on the ultimate joyride was the companys first paying customer Oliver Daemen a lastminute fillin for the mystery winner of a 28 million auction who opted for a later flight The Dutch teens father took part in the auction and agreed on a lower undisclosed price last week when Blue Origin offered his son the vacated seatBlue Origin founded by Bezos in 2000 in Kent Washington near Amazons Seattle headquarters iquest has yet to open ticket sales to the public or reveal the price For now its booking auction bidders Two more passenger flights are planned by years end said Blue Origin CEO Bob Smith The recycled rocket and capsule that carried up Tuesdays passengers were used on the last two space demos according to company officials Virgin Galactic already has more than 600 reservations at 250000 apiece Founded by Branson in 2004 the company has sent crew into space four times and plans two more test flights from New Mexico before launching customers next yearAlso Read Richard Branson makes it to space in his own winged rocket shipBlue Origins approach was slower and more deliberate After 15 successful unoccupied test flights to space since 2015 Bezos finally declared it was time to put people on board The Federal Aviation Administration agreed last week approving the commercial space license Bezos 57 who also owns The Washington Post claimed the first seat The next went to his 50yearold brother Mark Bezos an investor and volunteer firefighter then Funk and Daemen They spent two days together in trainingUniversity of Chicago space historian Jordan Bimm said the passenger makeup is truly remarkable Imagine if the head of NASA decided he wanted to launch in 1961 instead of Alan Shepard on the first US spaceflight he said in an email That would have been unthinkable Bimm said It shows just how much the idea of who and what space is for has changed in the last 60 years Bezos stepped down earlier this month as Amazons CEO and just last week donated USD 200 million to renovate the National Air and Space Museum Most of the USD 28 million from the auction has been distributed to space advocacy and education groups with the rest benefiting Blue Origins Club for the Future its own education effortFewer than 600 people have reached the edge of space or beyond Until Tuesday the youngest was 25yearold Soviet cosmonaut Gherman Titov and the oldest at 77 was Mercuryturnedshuttle astronaut John Glenn Both Bezos and Branson want to drastically increase those overall numbers as does SpaceXs Elon Musk whos skipping brief space hops and sending his private clients straight to orbit for tens of millions apiece with the first flight coming up in SeptemberDespite appearances Bezos and Branson insist they werent trying to outdo each other by strapping in themselves Bezos noted this week that only one person can lay claim to being first in space Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin who rocketed into orbit on April 12 1961 This isnt a competition this is about building a road to space so that future generations can do incredible things in spaceiquest he said on NBCs TodayBlue Origin is working on a massive rocket New Glenn to put payloads and people into orbit from Cape Canaveral Florida The company also wants to put astronauts back on the moon with its proposed lunar lander Blue Moon its challenging NASAs sole contract award to SpaceXThis story has been sourced from a third party syndicated feed agencies Midday accepts no responsibility or liability for its dependability trustworthiness reliability and data of the text Midday managementmiddaycom reserves the sole right to alter delete or remove without notice the content in its absolute discretion for any reason whatsoever