Amazon founder and CEO Jeff Bezos has announced that he will board a space flight next month, in a capsule connected to a rocket built by his space exploration company, Blue Origin. Bezos appears here in 2019.
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Amazon founder and CEO Jeff Bezos has announced that he will board a spaceflight next month, in a capsule connected to a rocket built by his space exploration company, Blue Origin. Bezos appears here in 2019.
Mark Ralston/AFP via Getty Images
Jeff Bezos has already chosen a hobby for his post-CEO life: space travel.
Just two weeks after stepping down as Amazon CEO, Bezos will board a rocket built by his space exploration company, Blue Origin.
Bezos said, “If you see Earth from space, it changes you. It changes your relationship to this planet, to humanity. It is one Earth.” Video Posted on Instagram Monday morning.
“Since I was five years old, I’ve dreamed of space travel.”
The Blue Origin rocket is called New Shepard, and it’s reusable — the idea being that reusing the rockets will reduce the cost of going into space and make it easier. The pressurized capsule can accommodate six passengers. There are no pilots.
It will be the first time a crew has been aboard the New Shepard, in a capsule attached to the missile.
And it’s not just Bezos: he invited his brother Mark, too.
Do you want to join the Bezos brothers?
You can bid for a seat on the flight at an auction that benefits the Blue Origin Foundation, whose mission is to inspire future generations to pursue careers in STEM fields. The current maximum bid is $2.8 million.
The flight is scheduled for July 20 – the anniversary of the 1969 Apollo 11 moon landing. Bezos relinquished the CEO title on July 5, when he passes the reins to Andy Gacy, who currently leads Amazon’s cloud computing division.
Blue Origin’s New Shepard rocket is seen launching with its attached capsule in 2019.
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Blue Origin’s New Shepard rocket is seen launching with its attached capsule in 2019.
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Bezos ended his Instagram post with Blue Origin’s Latin slogan, Gradatim Ferociter — which the company translated as “step by step fiercely.”
What does it mean that Bezos is going to space?
technically speaking, Kerman line It is the altitude at which space begins – about 62 miles above sea level.
But Bezos will not be above that line for long. The flight is expected to take about 11 minutes, and only a small portion of that time is over the Kerman Line, according to To plot the itinerary on the Blue Origin website.
Shepard’s new flight is called a suborbital flight, . means The rocket is not powerful enough to enter Earth’s orbit.
Giant Leap for Billionaires
Bezos is not alone in spending some of his vast fortune on space exploration.
Elon Musk’s SpaceX Crew Dragon now regularly carries astronauts to and from the International Space Station. And in May, a test flight for Richard Branson’s Virgin Galactic Arrive At 55 miles, which is the third human spaceflight.
But neither Musk nor Branson has yet traveled to space in their companies’ planes.
In 2014, two pilots were aboard a Virgin Galactic test flight that crashed into California’s Mojave Desert, killing one of them. An investigation found that pilot error and design problems were to blame for the crash.
A mock ride aboard the New Shepard crew capsule in January.
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A mock ride aboard the New Shepard crew capsule in January.
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Four Virgin Galactic employees are expected to join the company’s next test flight, and Branson goes on the flight next, BBC Reports. Branson He said Last month he is actively preparing for spaceflight.
Virgin Galactic’s design looks different from the bright years of Blue Origin New Shepard. The Virgin vehicle looks like an airplane, while the New Shepherd is a real missile.
But Bezos says Virgin Galactic’s flights don’t actually reach space.
“One of the issues Virgin Galactic will have to tackle, in the end, is that it’s not over the Karman line, not yet,” Bezos Tell space news In 2019. “I think one of the things they are going to have to figure out is how to get over the Karman Line.”
NPR Science Reporter Jeff Brumville contributed to this report.
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