Dharamshala, 21st July: The world’s richest man, Jeff Bezos, took an 11-minute supersonic joy ride to space and back on Tuesday morning atop the rocket and capsule system designed by his space company, Blue Origin, days after Virgin Galactica founder Richard Branson did. Upon landing, Bezos declared it “the best day ever” on his communications check. Bezos’ brother, Mark Bezos, was on board, as was Wally Funk, an 82-year-old pilot and one of the “Mercury 13” women who trained to go to space in the twentieth century but never got to fly; and Oliver Daemen, an 18-year-old recent high school graduate who was Blue Origin’s first paying customer and whose ticket was purchased by his father, an investor.
Funk and Daemen became the oldest and youngest individuals to journey to space, respectively. This was also the first crewed trip for Blue Origin’s New Shepard suborbital space tourism rocket, which the company wants to utilize in the months and years ahead to carry wealthy thrill-seekers on high-flying pleasure flights.
The four passengers were strapped into their New Shepard crew capsule at Blue Origin’s launch site in rural West Texas on Tuesday just before the rocket lit its engines at 8:12 a.m. CT, sending the vehicle blazing past the speed of sound and up to an altitude of 107 Kms above the desert landscape. Passengers were weightless for roughly three minutes at the apex of the flight route and were able to disembark from their seats to float around and take in panoramic views of the Earth and the cosmos.
Reporters on the ground were able to see the launch, which saw the rocket fly across the almost clear Texas sky with a flowering contrail. As it soared into the sky, the rocket engine’s dazzling blaze resembled a star or planet. During the microgravity section of the journey, Bezos and the crew could be heard cheering on Blue Origin’s Livestream as they moved around the capsule.
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