The Blue Origin New Shepard lifts off with the company’s first human crew.
Blue Origin
The world’s richest man’s 10-minute flight took him and three others over 100km above the Earth’s surface in a crucial milestone for the 21-year old space company.
On Tuesday at 8:12 am CDT, a Blue Origin New Shepard spacecraft launched a space capsule, the RSS First Step and its crew on a suborbital jaunt that mimicked the same type of flight made by American astronaut Alan Shepherd 60 years ago. Among that crew was company founder Jeff Bezos, taking his own small step 21 years after getting his space company started.
“I want to go on this flight because it’s a thing I’ve wanted to do all my life,” Bezos said in a video broadcast before the launch. He was joined by his brother, Mark, customer Oliver Daemon and 82 year-old aviation pioneer Wally Funk.
Since its founding in 2000, Bezos has held Blue Origin to himself. He’s put an estimated $7.5 billion of…