A kindBecome the second billionaire in less than two weeks Jeff Bezos It was sent into space by his own space company on Tuesday. On Tuesday, the founder of online retailer Amazon and currently the world’s richest man flew into space with the rocket system of his second company, Blue Origin. The whole trip only lasted about ten minutes. Bezos and three other passengers took off shortly after nine o’clock in the morning local time. After a few minutes delay from a launch pad in the Texas desert, they were able to experience a brief weightlessness and finally landed safely on the earth again.
“The best day ever,” Bezos said after landing. This is the first manned mission of Blue Origin.Happened 9 days after the British billionaire Richard Branson Fly into space on his Virgin Galactic space glider. Branson preempted Bezos, but the Amazon founder wrote history in a different way on Tuesday: Unlike Branson, he has a paying customer and may have approved a new era of space tourism. Both Blue Origin and Virgin Galactic plan to send regular paying passengers into space from now on. Some analysts believe that this kind of enjoyable space travel may become a billion-dollar market in the next few years.
Selected iconic date
Bezos chose a symbolic date for his flight, exactly 52 years after the Apollo 11 mission landed on the moon, which is arguably the most important milestone in American space travel. He also led the space pioneer Wally Funk on a plane to bring history to life. Fink was one of a group of women who passed the arduous astronaut test program in the 1960s, but none of them entered space. On Tuesday, 82-year-old Fink became the oldest person ever to enter space.
The youngest man to date, 18-year-old Dutch student Oliver Daemen, is also on board. He was the first paying customer, and his investor father bought tickets for him. He came on the flight alongside Bezos a little unexpectedly.The seat was auctioned as part of the auction, and the auction proceeds were donated to the foundation by the following institutions Blue origin Should benefit. The winning bid was US$28 million, but the company announced last week that due to a “time schedule conflict,” the relevant personnel-currently unknown-had to cancel. Instead, the gate moved in, and he also participated in the auction with his father. In fact, he should only appear on the second flight. The fourth passenger on Tuesday was Bezos’ brother Mark.
Blue Origin takes its travelers into space in a very different way from Virgin Galactic. Passengers sit in a space capsule, which is sent into space by a recoverable rocket. Then the capsule is detached from the rocket, and passengers can take off their seat belts and feel weightless. The rocket and the space capsule returned to Earth apart from each other. Virgin’s space experience is more like a traditional flight, lasting about an hour, so it takes longer. The spacecraft that Branson and his companion were in was taken to a certain height by a two-fuselage plane before he left. Virgin Atlantic passengers can also feel weightless within minutes. Blue Origin flies far from the Carmen Line, which is located 100 kilometers above sea level and is often described as the boundary between the Earth’s atmosphere and space. Virgins are still flying under a few kilometers, which is why Blue Origin sparked a discussion about whether it should really be counted as a space experience. However, at least the US aviation authority also defines Virgin Atlantic’s altitude as space.
Tourists in space have existed before, even to destinations farther away. Between 2001 and 2009, a total of 7 people took the Russian Soyuz aircraft to the International Space Station 400 kilometers from the earth. However, the idea behind Blue Origin and Virgin Galactic’s suborbital flight is to provide affordable travel to a wider audience, thus making space tourism a real industry.
Tickets are still not cheap: Virgin Galactic has asked for up to $250,000 so far and said that due to limited supply, prices may increase. In the long run, the company plans to provide space flight services at a price of $40,000. Virgin said that it has 600 reservations, and the flights so far are still under formal testing, and paying customers should start traveling with them from next year. Blue Origin has yet to announce the ticket price. After the flight with Bezos on Tuesday, two more passenger trips are planned this year.
