Jeff Bezos has revealed that he will be flying to space next month. The billionaire founder of Blue Origin and his brother will be two of the passengers on his company’s initial suborbital sightseeing trip on its spacecraft, New Shepard. The rocket enterprise is targeting July 20 for its initial sightseeing trip to space. The New Shepard rocket-and-capsule combo is developed to autonomously fly six passengers more than 62 miles (one hundred km) above Earth into suborbital space.
“Ever since I was five years old, I’ve dreamed of traveling to space,” Jeff Bezos mentioned whilst revealing his space tour plans with brother Mark Bezos on Instagram this afternoon. “On July 20th, I will take that journey with my brother. The greatest adventure, with my best friend,” he mentioned.
According to news agency Reuters, Blue Origin disclosed that the existing highest bid for a seat on its New Shepard spacecraft was $2.4 million in the ongoing second round of auction.
A statement on the company’s web-site reads: “Blue Origin has been flight testing New Shepard and its redundant safety systems since 2012. The program has had 15 successful consecutive missions including three successful escape tests, showing the crew escape system can activate safely in any phase of flight.
“Named immediately after Mercury astronaut Alan Shepard, the initial American to go to space, New Shepard is Blue Origin’s reusable suborbital rocket program developed to take astronauts and analysis payloads into space.”