Jeff Bezos will fly into space and with it, one of the richest men on the planet, will fulfill his dream. This was announced by the CEO of Amazon through a video, where he details that the trip will take place on July 20 aboard a rocket built by his space company, Blue Origin.
“I want to take this flight because it is what I have wanted to do all my life. It’s an adventure. It is something very important to me ”, he commented in the video, where he mentioned that this first flight of his company will be with his brother Mark, as part of the crew.
The flight will take place on a reusable New Shepard rocket and once it reaches about 100 kilometers above sea level, the capsule will detach, allowing passengers the opportunity to see the curvature of the Earth and experience weightlessness. .
In turn, the propellant and the capsule will land separately, according to Blue Origin, which also specified that the capsule will fall in the Texas desert with the help of a parachute. “Seeing the Earth from space changes you and also changes your relationship with this planet and with humanity,” Bezos commented on this experience.
It is worth mentioning that Jeff and Mark Bezos will not be the only space tourists traveling in the crew, as Blue Origin also began to auction a seat on the flight on July 20, next to the CEO of Amazon, with whom you can have a conversation . So far, the highest offer is located at 2.8 million dollars and the period to bid for that seat ends on June 12.
The auction announcement was made in early May and according to Ariane Cornell, Blue Origin sales director, the money raised will be used to support the Club for the Future foundation. He also revealed that “a couple more” manned flights could be carried out later this year.
This flight will be relevant for Bezos’ company, as it marks the culmination of more than a decade of space rocket tests, which have been delayed several times. It should be remembered that the company had initially planned to sell seats in 2019, so that the first crew would fly in 2020.
The participants of this flight will undergo several days of training, especially to know how to handle emergency scenarios, although they will not have to know how to manually handle the capsule, as the trip will be autonomous from its launch.
In addition to the Bezos brothers and the auction winner, Cornell explained that other astronauts selected by Blue Origin will also be included, but so far it is not known how those specialists were selected or if they are employees of the company.
The New Shepard rocket – named after the first American to enter space, Alan Shepard – has flown successfully in 15 tests since its first launch in 2015 and this will be the first time it has carried a crew on board. His most recent flight was in April.
