Bezos Lift to Space

|THE DEN|

Blue Origin was established by Jeff Bezos in September 2000 six years after he founded Amazon. For a decade, the spaceflight company operated quietly, mostly hidden from public view.

Blue Origin proceeded to develop its own spacecraft, which including New Shepard, which is meant to transport passengers and payloads to suborbital space on short journeys. The 59-foot-tall (18-meter) spacecraft is named after NASA astronaut Alan Shepard, whose suborbital mission on May 5, 1961, was the first crewed spaceflight in the United States.

Making And Appreciation

On May 5, Blue Origin revealed the July 20 target. The dates were carefully chosen: May 5 marked the 60th anniversary of Shepard historic mission, and July 20 marked the 52nd anniversary of the Apollo 11 lunar landing.

Bezos has frequently mentioned Apollo 11 as a major influence, claiming that his dreams of flying began when he was five years old and watched the momentous lunar landing. Blue Origin created history of its own, and not just for the company sake: Funk and Daemen were the oldest and youngest persons to reach the last frontier, respectively.

Billionaires Lift Off

Aboard July 20, Jeff Bezos, the millionaire creator of Blue Origin, launched into suborbital space with three other people on the company New Shepard aircraft, marking a watershed moment for the man and the space tourism industry.

“Blue Control, Bezos. Best day ever!” Bezos said while in flight.

The autonomous New Shepard, which is made up of a rocket and a capsule, took off from Blue Origin Launch Site One in Van Horn, Texas, at 9:11 a.m. The capsule lifted Bezos, his brother Mark, 82-year-old aviation pioneer Wally Funk, and 18-year-old Dutch physics student Oliver Daemen 66.5 miles (107 kilometers) above Earth before landing in the West Texas scrublands with a parachute-assisted, dust-raising landing. The rocket returned successfully as well, landing vertically and powered at its chosen landing zone. The flight was followed by a thunderous sonic boom and wild shouts from the Blue Origin employees who were there.

Blue Origin and It’s Crew Set History

The crew included Jeff Bezos, Mark Bezos, Wally Funk, and Oliver Daemen, who all officially became astronauts When they cleared the Kármán Line, the globally recognized space boundary.

Wally Funk, 82, has set the record for the oldest person to travel in space.

Oliver Daemen, 18, became the first commercial astronaut to buy a ticket and travel to space aboard a privately-funded and licenced spacecraft launched from a private launch facility. He was also the world youngest space traveller.

New Shepard was the first commercial vehicle to fly paying customers, including payloads and humans, to space and back, due to a suborbital reusable launch vehicle license.

Jeff and Mark Bezos made history by being the first siblings to fly in space together.