Jeff Bezos not only wants to be the richest man in the world, he also wants to make history by taking part in the
first manned flight into space
and leaving Earth's atmosphere without a pilot on Tuesday.
This Tuesday, the founder of Amazon also intends to travel to the edge of space in the
New Shepard
rocket
and a capsule designed by his company Blue Origin.
The 57-year-old billionaire could not hide his excitement: "I can't wait to see how it's going to be.
People who go into space say that they come back changed,
" he said in an interview with TODAY on our sister network NBC News.
How and where to see it
Blue Origin will broadcast the event live through its website starting at 7:30 am (Eastern Time).
It can also be followed on Noticias Telemundo.
Bezos and the other three crew members will take off this Tuesday at 9:00 am (Eastern Time, 8:00 am local time) from the West Texas desert, southeast of El Paso.
Crew
The oldest and youngest crew members will travel on this approximately 10-minute flight, without pilots or engineers on board.
One is
Wally Funk,
of
82 years,
one expiloto test and one of the first women to participate in the space mission Mercury 13 in the early 60s, which aimed to show that women could meet NASA standards to be part of the group of astronauts.
The other is Dutch physics student
Oliver Daemen,
just
18,
fascinated by space since he was 4, who won his seat at an auction.
The four-person team includes Mark Bezos, Jeff's brother and whom he considers his great friend.
What will the flight be like
The capsule will not go into orbit around Earth, but will reach the edge of space, at an
altitude of around 65 miles
(105 km), where the crew will experience a
lack of gravity for between three and four minutes,
before returning to the Earth with the help of parachute.
The Blue Origin capsule is fully automated, so no trained personnel are needed in the short space jump.
Bezos' attempt to reach space comes after billionaire Richard Branson's trip on July 11 aboard a vehicle developed by his private company, Virgin Galactic.
But unlike Virgin Galactic's Unity space plane, the New Shepard rocket and capsule fly autonomously, with no pilots on board.
The capsule of the Blue Origin spacecraft is also designed to reach a
higher altitude than the Virgin Galactic vehicle.
The edge of space is often defined by the so-called Kármán line (boundary between atmosphere and outer space), at an estimated altitude of 62 miles (100 km) above sea level.
While the New Shepard capsule will fly above this line, the Virgin Galactic spacecraft achieved only an altitude of around 53 miles (85 km).
The future of space tourism
The launch marks an important step for Blue Origin, which is committed to the future of expensive space travel.
The aerospace company expects to start a series of
operational flights with paid crew members in the near future,
and although it has not announced the price of individual tickets, they are expected to be around several
hundred thousand dollars.
In addition to Virgin Galactic and Blue Origin suborbital excursions, Elon Musk's company, SpaceX, also wants to fly orbital sightseeing flights, with the first mission to space with an all-civilian crew scheduled for this year.
With information from AP and NBC News.
