Story at a glance
- Former Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos’s New Shepard rocket will carry both the youngest and oldest space travelers when it launches in five days.
- Oliver Daemen will replace an unnamed auction winner who will miss the trip due to a scheduling issue.
- Daemen will join Jeff Bezos and his brother Mark Bezos, as well as space pioneer Wally Funk who, at 82, is set to become the oldest person to go to outer space.
Former Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos’s New Shepard rocket will carry both the youngest and oldest space travelers when it launches in five days.
Blue Origin announced Tuesday that 18-year-old Oliver Daemen kicked off the company’s commercial operation, becoming the first paying customer to board the rocket. Daemen will replace an unnamed auction winner who will miss the trip due to a scheduling issue — he will join a later flight.
“I am super excited to experience zero-g and see the world from above,” Daemen said in a video, according to The Associated Press.
Daemen will join Jeff Bezos and his brother Mark Bezos, as well as space pioneer Wally Funk who, at 82, is set to become the oldest person to go to outer space. The group will blast off from west Texas on July 20 for an 11-minute flight.
“In 1961, Wally Funk was at the top of her class as part of the ‘Mercury 13’ Woman in Space Program,” Jeff Bezos wrote in an Instagram post announcing Funk’s addition. “Despite completing their training, the program was cancelled, and none of the thirteen flew.”
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The Federal Aviation Administration earlier this week issued a license, good through August, for the New Shepard to carry the group to space.
Blue Origin will livestream the launch from its website beginning at 6:30 A.M. CDT. Lift-off is expected to occur around 8 A.M.
“This marks the beginning of commercial operations for New Shepard, and Oliver represents a new generation of people who will help us build a road to space,” Blue Origin CEO Bob Smith said in the announcement.
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A successful flight would make Jeff Bezos the second person to ride his own rocket out of the Earth’s atmosphere. Virgin Galactic CEO Richard Branson successfully flew to space on Sunday.
“I’ve always dreamt what it would be like to be in space looking back at this incredible Earth. It’s impossible to describe just how magnificent it is,” Branson told NBC’s “Today.”
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