On July 20 Jeff Bezos, founder of Amazon and richest man in the world with a net worth of $ 207 billion (Forbes data), will fly into space aboard a spaceship of his company Blue Origin.
The news
A millionaire auction was held on June 12, attended by 7600 people from 159 countries around the world. Up for grabs was an 11-minute space flight with tycoon Jeff Bezos. The precious ticket was sold for 28 million dollars. Blue Origin had communicated, at the time, that the identity of the buyer would be revealed close to departure. Four days after departure, Blue Origin itself has made it known that this person will not take part in the historic flight. The reason, apparently, is related to another commitment on the buyer’s agenda.
The consequences
In place of the mysterious buyer, who will still have a reserved seat on one of the following flights, will be 18-year-old Oliver Daemen, son of the CEO of an investment company in the Netherlands. The boy had participated in the auction on 12 June and had secured a ticket for the second Blue Origin flight. It is unclear how much the Daemen family paid to send Oliver to the stars, but there is talk of a significantly lower figure than the $ 28 million beaten at the end of the auction.
How the crew is composed
Jeff Bezos and his brother Mark Bezos will board the Blue Origin spacecraft, called New Shepard. With them there will be the youngest and the oldest person ever to reach the borders with Space: the 18 year old Oliver Daemen, in fact, and the 82 year old Mary Wallace Funk, iconic aviator of the last century who starting from 1976, the year in which NASA has officially opened the gates of Space to women, has applied three times to become an astronaut and has always been rejected.
This group of civilians will be supported by only one real astronaut on board, which will give civilians safety especially in the critical phase of the launch, which will take place from a base in Texas, where the spacecraft will reach a speed of 3500 km / h.
What else is there to know about Bezos’ flight
For the first time in history, a civilian crew will perform a suborbital flight aboard a fully autonomous vehicle: the New Shepard spacecraft, which will reach the border with Space at about 99 km high, will not be able to be flown from the inside. . Passengers will receive training two days prior to departure. The flight will take just 11 minutes.
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