Billionaire Jeff Bezos takes part in the first tourist flight of his space company Blue Origin. His brother Mark Bezos is also coming along.
Bezos will board a Blue Origin rocket on July 20 for a short space journey. The trip takes place two weeks after his departure as CEO of Amazon.
“I’ve dreamed of going into space since I was five,” Bezos wrote on Instagram. “On July 20 I will make that trip with my brother. The greatest adventure, together with my best friend.”
It will be Blue Origin’s first tourist spaceflight. Bezos steps into a six-person pod. It will be lifted about 100 kilometers above the earth on top of a New Shepard rocket of 18 meters. There the tourists experience for a few minutes what it is like to be weightless, after which they return to earth to land with the help of parachutes.
Blue Origin has not yet disclosed how much a ticket for the flight will cost. The company started an auction last month. In any case, the highest bidder gets to go with Bezos and his brother. The auction is still ongoing and the highest bid is now at $2.8 million.