Jeff Bezos in front of a capsule from his Blue Origin space project
Photo:
Isaiah Downing / REUTERS
Jeff Bezos has cashed many of his stocks over the past few weeks.
The company boss needed cash for his space plans, it said.
But only a few would have expected that the richest man in the world would want to fly into space himself so quickly.
In a few weeks, the Amazon billionaire wants to take off.
“I've dreamed of going into space since I was five.
On July 20, I will take this trip with my brother, «wrote Bezos on Instagram.
The founder of the online retailer published a video in which he raved about his fascination for space and asked his brother if he would like to join him on the flight of his space company Blue Origin. So far, it was only known that Blue Origin wanted to bring people into space for the first time in July - the company had also started to auction one of the spaces to a space tourist. It was not previously known that the boss would also be on board at the premiere.
According to the plans so far, the flight will take about ten minutes, four minutes of which the passengers should spend above the Kármán line, which marks the boundary between the earth's atmosphere and space.
At an altitude of around one hundred kilometers, the crew on board can then experience weightlessness and observe the curvature of the earth from space.
Current bid for the all excursion: $ 2.8 million
With his own stay in space, Bezos could also catch up to a certain extent with his competitor Elon Musk.
The Amazon manager, who announced his withdrawal from the top of the group in February, recently suffered a serious defeat against the Tesla pioneer and its space company SpaceX.
SpaceX was able to win an important NASA tender.
They are supposed to bring US astronauts back to the moon.
The final bid for a seat in Bezos' astronaut capsule, which has large panoramic windows and can accommodate six people, is $ 2.8 million.
The auction runs until June 12th, more than 5200 bidders from 136 countries have applied for a place in the cockpit so far.
The company initially left open who should take a seat in the remaining vacant seats.
If the flight is too expensive for you, you can hope that the offer will soon be larger: British billionaire Richard Branson is also planning to bring paying guests into space with his Galactic Holdings.
Bezos founded Blue Origin around 20 years ago.
In mid-April, the company last tested its rocket called the New Shepard with an astronaut capsule.
It reached an altitude of around 105 kilometers before returning to Earth.
For the first time, employees of the company also rehearsed some astronaut tasks before take-off and after landing.
The actual test flight, however, remained unmanned - the New Shepard has never flown with people on board.
apr / dpa / Reuters