American business magnate Jeff Bezos will be flying 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 20th, just 15 days after he is set to resign as CEO of Amazon.
Blue Origin said Bezos’ younger brother, Mark Bezos, will also join the flight as will the winner of an auction being held for one of the seats. The highest bid stands at $2.8 million as of Monday morning, five days before the auction closes, according to the company’s website.
“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.”
Blue Origin’s space tourism system New Shepard, a rocket that carries a capsule to the edge of space, has flown more than a dozen successful test flights without passengers on board.
New Shepard is designed to carry up to six people on a ride past the edge of space, with the capsules on previous test flights reaching an altitude of more than 340,000 feet (more than 100 kilometers). The capsule has massive windows to give passengers a view, spending a few minutes in zero gravity before returning to Earth.
The rocket launches vertically, with the booster detaching and returning to land at a concrete pad nearby. The capsule’s return is slowed by a set of parachutes, before softly landing in the desert.
“To see the Earth from space, it changes you,” the Amazon CEO said. “It’s an adventure; it’s a big deal for me.”
Bezos founded Blue Origin in 2000 and continues to wholly own the company. The existence of Blue Origin only became public in 2003 when Bezos began purchasing the land that now forms the company’s testing facility in West Texas.
July 20 will mark the 52nd anniversary of the Apollo 11 moon landing.
