The New Shepard rocket and the Blue Origin company fulfilled the childhood dream of their owner, Jeff Bezos, when it took the Amazon founder and former CEO to the edge of space and back in a successful operation.
Bezos could be heard shouting on the radio “best day ever” moment after their capsule touched down in the West Texas desert after a 10 minute 10 second flight. The capsule reached an altitude of 347,563 ft (105km) above ground level, crossing the Kármán Line of 100kms, which is officially considered the beginning of space by most international agencies.
Bezos was accompanied by three other people on board, including the oldest astronaut, the 82-year-old American Wally Funk, and the youngest, 18-year-old Dutch Oliver Daemen. The billionaire was also accompanied with his brother, Mark.
The date chose by Blue Origin marked the 52nd anniversary of the Apollo 11 moon landing, but it led to Richard Branson beating Bezos in the race to become the first billionaire in space. Nine days earlier, Branson flew with three others on Unity 22.
Following a hold of nearly seven minutes just 15 minutes before the scheduled take-off time, New Shepard, flying at a speed of Mach 3 (three times the speed of sound) reached nearly 16 kilometres higher than Branson’s flight.
The passengers experienced several minutes of weightlessness to float inside the spacious capsule and were able to witness earth’s curvature through its wide windows. It then landed under parachutes.
Funk was one of 13 female pilots chosen for the Mercury 13 flight into space in the 1960s. They went through the same tests as NASA’s all-male astronaut corps, but the flight never materialised.
“I’ve been waiting a long time to finally get up there,” Funk said. “I loved it…and the four of us, we had a great time. It was wonderful. I want to go again – fast!”
Blue Origin completed 15 successful unoccupied test flights since 2015 and were granted commercial space license by the Federal Aviation Administration last week.
Bezos stepped down earlier on July 5 as Amazon’s CEO. Last week, he donated $200 million to the Smithsonian Institute, and most of the $28 million raised from the auction has been distributed to 19 space advocacy and education groups (one million dollar each). The remaining $9 million will go to Blue Origin’s own education effort, Club for the Future.
After the post-flight press conference, Bezos announced a new philanthropic venture – the Courage & Civility Award. It is a $100 million grant that the recipient can give to charities of their choice.
Bezos said the award “recognizes leaders who aim high and who pursue solutions with courage and always do so with civility”.
Bezos gave the first award to Van Jones, news commentator and founder of Dream Corps, and to award-winning chef José Andrés.
