Jeff Bezos' Rocket Flight That Drives Space Tourism: 'Best Day of Life'
New Shephard crew, with Jeff Bezos (in hat)
Billionaire Jeff Bezos flew into space on his company's first manned flight, Blue Origin.
In addition to the manager himself, the crew included his brother Mark Bezos, Wally Funk, an 82-year-old space race pioneer , and Oliver Daemen, an 18-year-old student . All four parachuted safely back to Earth after a 10-minute and 10-second trip.
They took off at 10:12 am on a rocket from Blue Origin's private launch site near Van Horn, Texas. Landing took place at 10:22.
They were in a capsule with the largest windows of spacecraft traveling into space, providing breathtaking views of Earth. After the capsule landed, the Amazon founder said, "Best day of my life!"
Funk commented: "I waited a long time and dreamed a lot to get to take off." Before departure, she said she would do somersaults and stunts in space.
In the 1960s, Funk was part of a group of women called Mercury 13, who went through the same screening tests as male astronauts, but they never flew into space.
The capsule, with brothers Bezos, Funk and Daemen, separated from the propeller at about 76 km high. The rocket landed on its "legs" about 3 km from the launch pad, while the capsule continued to climb to an altitude of about 106 km. A commercial aircraft reaches an average height of 11 km during its flight.
"We were in zero gravity for about four minutes, when we were able to get out of our seats, unbuckle, float, look at the Earth's atmosphere," Bezos told CBS News. "The view is fantastic, zero gravity is an unusual experience that you can't get by any means good enough on Earth."
After reaching its maximum altitude, the capsule began its descent, dropping by parachute to a soft landing in the desert.
The launch is the latest step in what has been dubbed the "billion dollar space race." It took place nine days after Bezos' space tourism rival Richard Branson flew his company's Virgin Galactic space plane .
Interviewed on the Late Show with Stephen Colbert , Richard insisted it hadn't been important to him beating Bezos and even gave his rival advice: "Just soak up the view—really soak up. It's a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity."
While the private spaceflight revolution is often heralded as an effort to expand access to space for all, seats aboard one of Virgin Galactic's flights will initially cost $250,000. to customers. The Blue Origin ticket price was not disclosed.
`We were in zero gravity for about four minutes,' said Bezos (in hat)
With a net worth of around US$200 billion (R$1.2 trillion), Bezos is the richest man in the world. At the age of 57, he recently resigned as Amazon's chief executive to focus on the company's special initiatives and other ventures such as Blue Origin.
Bezos' brother Mark, 53, founded an advertising agency and is now senior vice president of Robin Hood, a charity based in New York.
The fourth passenger is the son of Joes Daemen, founder of the Dutch investment firm Somerset Capital Partners. Oliver had originally been guaranteed a seat on the second flight, but was called up to replace the anonymous winner of a public auction.
This unidentified winner paid $28 million (BRL 147 million) to join Bezos on New Shepard's first manned flight, but had to drop out "due to scheduling conflicts."
Bezos and Branson were criticized on social media, with people arguing that the money to go into space could be better used — like fighting climate change or helping the world recover from the pandemic.
Richard countered, "I see, but I think maybe these people aren't fully aware of what space does for Earth."
He explained that satellites are monitoring "rainforest degradation, food distribution — even things like climate change," and added: "We need more spacecraft going into space, not less."
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