Jeff Bezos to go to space on first crewed flight of Blue Origin rocket

Jeff Bezos will be going to space on the first crewed flight of the New Shepard, the rocket ship made by his space company, Blue Origin.

The flight is scheduled for July 20, just 15 days after he’s set to resign as CEO of Amazon, reported CNN.

Bezos’ younger brother, Mark, will also be on the flight.

“Ever since I was five years old, I’ve dreamed of traveling to space,” Bezos, 57, said in a Monday morning Instagram post. “On July 20th, I will take that journey with my brother. The greatest adventure, with my best friend.”

If all goes according to plan, Bezos — the world’s richest person with a net worth of $187 billion — will be the first of the billionaire space tycoons to experience a ride aboard the rocket tech that he’s poured millions into developing, reported CNN.

Not even Elon Musk, whose SpaceX company builds rockets powerful enough to orbit the Earth, has announced plans to travel to space aboard one of his company’s crew capsules.

Blue Origin’s flight crewed flight will see the company’s six-seater capsule and 59-foot rocket tear toward the edge of space on a 11-minute flight that’ll reach more than 60 miles above Earth.

After six years of extensive and often secretive testing of the rocket and capsule, called New Shepard, Blue Origin announced in May that it was preparing to put the first passengers in a New Shepard capsule, reported CNN.

Though the company has not announced how much it will sell regular tickets for, Blue Origin said one seat will be given to the winner of a month-long auction that’s currently in progress. The bidding had reached $2.8 million as of Monday morning.

The-CNN-Wire
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