Guwahati News Desk: The founder of Amazon, Jeff Bezos, who is one of the world’s richest man, became the planet’s wealthiest astronaut on Tuesday.
Bezos and his crew, were launched into space in a 10-foot-tall capsule, lifted by the New Shepard rocket made by his own firm Blue Origin, at its facility in West Texas, shortly after 9 am on Tuesday.
Along with three others, Bezos travelled to outer space in his own rocket to mark a new era in private space travel. It was a key milestone in the company’s effort to make space tourism viable.
The three members along with Bezos, on the 10 minutes and 18 seconds journey that established new records, included of his own brother Mark and the world’s oldest and youngest space-farers.
The 82- year old, Wally Funk, who was trained as a NASA astronaut in the 1960s, but didn’t make the launch cut, became the oldest person in space.
The 18-year old, Oliver Daemen, a physics student from the Netherlands whose father paid for his flight, became the youngest.
After going past the 62-mile height that is considered by many to be where space begins, the capsule reached 351,210 feet altitude — 66.5 miles — before returning to earth.
When they returned to earth, Bezos popped out of the capsule wearing a cowboy hat exclaiming, “Best day ever!”
The suborbital journey of Bezos and his crew, came nine days after billionaire Richard Branson demonstrated his rival company’s capabilities by boarding a Virgin Galactic vessel and taking a similar flight to a lower altitude of 53.5 miles.
The back-to-back launches inside ten days by billionaires Branson and Bezos is viewed by some as vanity projects, but many analysts believe it will herald an era of commercial space tourism, including trips to the moon, but only for those who can afford it, although costs are expected to drop over the years.
As per the sources, Elon Musk’s SpaceX is the third of the troika of companies that are rocket-charging the industry. Even NASA has chosen SpaceX’s Starship for the first human mission to the moon powered by private enterprise, with Blue Origin also bidding for a piece of the action.