Editor's take: Blue Origin will conduct its first space tourism trip on July 20 and founder Jeff Bezos will be among the passengers on the historic flight. Although there was no public "race to space" among the world's top tech billionaires, one has to imagine that Bezos is pretty stoked about beating Elon Musk to the proverbial finish line.
Bezos in a recent Instagram post said he’s dreamed of traveling to space since he was five years old. On July 20, he will fulfill that dream alongside his brother Mark. “The greatest adventure, with my best friend,” Bezos described it as.
A third passenger will join the Bezos brothers – the winner of an ongoing auction over on Blue Origin’s website. That opportunity will conclude on June 12 with a live auction. Nearly 6,000 participants from 143 countries have already taken part in the auction, Blue Origin said.
Many congratulations to @JeffBezos & his brother Mark on announcing spaceflight plans. Jeff started building @blueorigin in 2000, we started building @virgingalactic in 2004 & now both are opening up access to Space - how extraordinary! Watch this space…
— Richard Branson (@richardbranson) June 7, 2021
The winning bid amount will be donated to the Club for the Future, Blue Origin’s foundation whose missions is “to inspire future generations to pursue careers in STEM and to help invent the future of life in space.”
Bezos founded the private aerospace company more than 20 years ago.
Come July 20, passengers will strap into the crew capsule and hitch a ride to the edge of space via Blue Origin’s New Shepard reusable rocket. Once Zero-G begins, the travelers will unbuckle and experience both weightlessness and incredible views of the Earth. Minutes later, they’ll strap back in and prepare for the wild ride back to solid ground.
The entire process is expected to last around 10 minutes.
https://www.techspot.com/news/89961-jeff-bezos-brother-mark-blue-origin-first-human.html
