“Blue Origin was founded by Jeff Bezos with the vision of enabling a future where millions of people are living and working in space to benefit Earth. These early suborbital space tourism flights will be prohibitively expensive to the vast majority of people, and t hat’s not expected to change anytime soon.īut this is how Blue Origin, however, describes its long-term vision: Still, Blue Origin and other billionaire-backed space companies put out a lot of talk about their technologies paving the way toward a “democratization” of space in which everyday people - not just government-trained astronauts - get to experience the thrill of spaceflight. And repeated promises of benevolence and benefit to a ravaged Earth has critics concerned that the ultra-wealthy view outer space as their own personal escape hatch. There’s been plenty of blowback about billionaires in space, including a recent online petition that garnered more than 162,000 signatures asking for Bezos never to return to Earth.īezos, who is worth about $200 billion, has funded the company almost solely out of his own pocket. The company has stayed declined numerous requests for additional information about ticket prices.īut the company says the auction did give a strong indication that there are plenty of people anxious to go: 7,600 people from 159 countries registered to participate in the bidding war. But the company has not given any indication of whether it will set a public price point for tickets, nor has it revealed how much Daemen, the Dutch 18-year-old who flew with Bezos, had to pay over for his seat. In photos: Jeff Bezos' historic flight to spaceīlue Origin said it’s planning to fly as many as two other New Shepard passenger flights this year. “It’s dark up here, oh my word!” Funk could be heard saying. Bezos and crew could be heard on Blue Origin’s livestream cheering as they moved about the capsule during the microgravity portion of the flight. The bright blaze of the rocket engine looked almost like a star or planet as it rose into the sky. The launch was visible to reporters on the ground, with the rocket streaking across the almost cloudless Texas sky with a blooming contrail. At the peak of the flight path, the passengers were weightless for about three minutes and were allowed to unstrap themselves from their seat to float around and soak in panoramic views of the Earth and the cosmos. The four passengers on Tuesday strapped into their New Shepard crew capsule at Blue Origin’s launch site in rural West Texas just before the rocket lit its engines at 8:12 am CT, sending the vehicle blaring past the speed of sound and up to more than 65 miles above the desert landscape, topping out at an altitude of 351,210 feet. The Amazon chief recently dethroned Bill Gates to become the world's richest man.īezos' fortune rose to $112 billion (£81 billion), the biggest single-year gain ever, allowing him to leapfrog Microsoft founder Gates, who's worth $90 billion (£65 billion).The Blue Origin capsule, with Jeff Bezos and crew inside, rockets off from the ground. "I'm in the process of converting my Amazon lottery winnings into a much lower price of admission so we can go explore the solar system." "The price of admission to space is very high," Bezos declared. New Shepard will land using an autonomous, rocket powered vertical landing system.The spacecraft will coast for a few minutes in space before re-entering the atmosphere.Those on-board will be high enough (at an altitude of 307,000 feet or 93,573 meters) to see the curvature of Earth.The capsule will then separate from the rocket passengers will be weightless for about four minutes during the 11-minute flight.New Shepard will launch vertically for about two and a half minutes before main engine cut-off.New Shepard is a reusable rocket with an attached crew capsule for passengers.
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