Ameican billionaire Jeff Bezos, owner of “Amazon”, is preparing to launch into space on his company’s first flight.
Bezos, considered the world’s richest man, will be accompanied by his brother Mark Bezos, 82-year-old female pilot Wally Funk and 18-year-old Dutch physics student Oliver Daemen, whose father won an auction a seat on the flight.
The New Shepard rocket, from the company Blue Origin, founded by Bezos in 2000, is scheduled to leave the platform from a desert location in West Texas, about 9 am EST (1:00 GMT).
The flight into space will take 11 minutes, and comes nine days after Briton Richard Branson boarded the first successful flight of the competing space tourism company, Virgin Galactic, from New Mexico, according to Reuters.
However, what distinguishes Bezos’ flight is that it will be at an altitude of 100 kilometers, which is higher than Branson’s flight, which was at an altitude of 86 kilometers.
Bezos’ flight is considered “the first mission of its kind in the world to be launched by a crew without astronauts.”
Good luck to Jeff Bezos and team on their historic flight tomorrow!
— Amazon (@amazon) July 19, 2021
And on Monday, Bezos said in an interview with “Fox Business Network”: “I’m excited but I’m not worried. We’ll see how I feel when I’m strapped to my seat… We’re ready. The vehicle is ready. This team is amazing. I feel good about it. My crewmates are satisfied with that, too.”