Jeff Bezos announced Monday that he will take to space aboard the first crewed space flight from his aerospace company Blue Origin, which is scheduled to launch on July 20, just two weeks after the billionaire announced his resignation from his role as general manager of Amazon.
Blue Origin said Bezos’ younger brother Mark Bezos will also join the flight. “Since I was five years old, I have dreamed of traveling in space”, Bezos, 57, said in an Instagram post Monday morning. “On July 20, I will be making this trip with my brother. The greatest adventure, with my best friend ”, he added.
Bezos, the richest person in the world with a net worth of $ 187 billion, will be the first of the billionaire space tycoons to experience a ride aboard rocket technology that has invested millions in development.
British billionaire Richard Branson, whose own space company, Virgin Galactic, plans to fly into suborbital space for ultra-rich thrill-seekers and in direct competition with Blue Origin.
Branson has long said he would be among the first passengers to board Virgin Galactic’s rocket-propelled plane, but that flight is expected to take place later in 2021.
Blue Origin’s crewed flight will see the company’s six-seat capsule and 59-foot rocket soar to the edge of space on an 11-minute flight that will reach over 60 miles above Earth .
After six years of extensive and often secretive testing of the rocket and capsule, known as New Shepard, Blue Origin announced in May that it was preparing to put the first passengers in a New Shepard capsule.
Blue Origin was founded by Bezos in 2000, and the company has performed more than a dozen unmanned test flights at Blue Origin’s facilities in Texas.
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