Blue Origin founder Jeff Bezos will fly to space next month on the first commercial flight of Blue Origin's New Shepard rocket. The tech mogul announced the news in an Instagram post and is taking his brother along for the ride. They will be ed by the winner of the auction for a seat on the New Shepard flight.
Bezos founded Blue Origin in 2000 with the aims of reducing the cost of space travel, improving its safety, and unlocking the potential of space for future generations of humanity. It was one of a number of commercial space travel companies started around the same time, like Elon Musk's SpaceX, whose recent NASA moon landing contract win is currently on hold pending the outcome of a Blue Origin appeal. While next month's trip to space won't be as lengthy as a mission to the moon, with it lasting only 11 minutes, it marks an important milestone in the development of Blue Origin and commercial spaceflight more broadly — and one that Bezos clearly did not want to miss.
In his Instagram post, Bezos says that he's dreamed of traveling to space since he was five years old. The wealth he has amassed through founding and building up Amazon has allowed him to do that by setting up his own aerospace company. In a video with the post, Bezos says: "To see the Earth from space, it changes you. It changes your relationship with this planet, with humanity. It's one Earth." The video also shows the moment Bezos asked his brother, who he calls his best friend, to accompany him on the trip. Commenting on the offer, Mark Bezos says: "I wasn't even expecting him to say that he'd be on the first flight and then when he asked me to go along I was just awestruck."
What Will Amazon Founder Experience On Blue Origin Flight?
On July 20, Bezos, his brother, and the winner of the Blue Origin auction will be ensconced in a 530 cu ft capsure atop the 60 ft New Shepard rocket. 110,000 lbf of thrust will lift them into the air and power them up towards space at speeds of more than Mach 3 (2,300 mph). In the process, they will experience forces equal to three times Earth’s gravity.
The flight will take them 100 km from Earth above the Kármán line, which is the recognized boundary of space. From there, they will be able to look down on the planet below and perhaps experience the overview effect, which is the shift in the perception of humanity and the Earth that some astronauts report when they look back at the planet as a whole from space. It is this Bezos was likely referring to when he said that seeing the earth from space "changes you."
Source: Jeff Bezos/Instagram, Blue Origin