She was among 13 female pilots - the so-called Mercury 13 - who took the same tests in the early 1960s as NASA’s Mercury 7 astronauts, but were barred because of their gender. At age 82, Funk will become the oldest person in space. Joining them will be Oliver Daemen, a last-minute fill-in for the winner of a $28 million charity auction who had a scheduling conflict. “It’s a thing I’ve wanted to do all my life.”īezos personally invited two of his fellow passengers - his 50-year-old brother Mark, an investor and volunteer firefighter, and female aviation pioneer Wally Funk. It changes your relationship with this planet, with humanity,” he said. “To see the Earth from space, it changes you. The 57-year-old Bezos - who also owns The Washington Post - stepped down as Amazon’s CEO earlier this month and last week donated $200 million to the Smithsonian Institution to renovate its National Air and Space Museum and launch an education center. Enamored by space history, Bezos named his New Shepard rocket after Alan Shepard, the first American in space, and his bigger, still-in-development New Glenn rocket after John Glenn, the first American in orbit. He chose the 52nd anniversary for his own launch. Bezos caught the space bug at age 5 while watching Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin’s moon landing on July, 20, 1969. The capsule is entirely automated, unlike Richard Branson’s Virgin Galactic rocket plane that required two pilots to get him to space and back a week ago.īranson’s advice? “Just sit back, relax, look out of the window, just absorb the view outside,” he said on CBS’ “The Late Show with Stephen Colbert.”ĭifferences in quirks and rockets aside, the billionaire rivals are gearing up to launch just about anybody willing to shell out hundreds of thousands of dollars for a brief up-and-down space hop.Ī brief look at what awaits Bezos and his passengers:īezos created Blue Origin in 2000, a move that he said prompted his high school girlfriend to observe, “Jeff started Amazon just to get enough money to do Blue Origin - and I can’t prove her wrong.” He has said he finances the rocket company by selling $1 billion in Amazon stock a year. Blue Origin has completed 15 test flights to space since 2015 – carrying up experiments, children’s postcards, and a mannequin – but this week’s trip will be the company’s first human launch.Unlike Richard Branson’s Virgin Galactic rocket plane, Bezos’s Blue Origin rocket will have no test pilots or flight engineers onboard – just Bezos, his brother, an 82-year-old aviation pioneer and a teenage tourist.The flight date was chosen to commemorate the 52nd anniversary of Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin’s moon landing – an event that touched off Bezos’s lifelong goal of one day traveling to space himself Blue Origin founder Jeff Bezos is slated to soar into space on his New Shepherd rocket this week.The prospect of finally booking a ticket to space is in fact very exciting for outer space aficionados-but the New Shepard space tour is just the beginning when it comes to real space travel. The price of a ticket to Sir Richard Branson’s Virgin Galactic offering, to give you an idea, is about US$250,000 per passenger. While Blue Origin has remained tight lipped about the cost of the tickets, Bezos has mentioned in passing that the cost of a ride on the New Shepard tourism rocket will be comparable with other space tourism companies. “Guys, how exciting is this-come on!” Bezos said in the video, which was aptly titled “It's time.” The clock is set to countdown to May 5-when the company is expected to reveal more details on the space tourism venture, including how to secure tickets. The company had announced the exciting news via a video released on Thursday-which officially marked a countdown clock on the Blue Origin website. Jeff Bezos’ space venture Blue Origin has this week announced its plans to begin selling tickets for a ride on its “New Shepard” space tourism rocket.
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