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| The richest man in the world flies into space |
The world's richest man, Jeff Bezos, made his first manned space flight from New Shepard, a rocket designed by his space company's Blue Origin spacecraft.
The flight was originally scheduled to take off on July 20, just 15 days after he stepped down as Amazon CEO.
Blue Origin said that Bezos' brother Marc Bezos (Mark Bezos) will also be on the flight.
Bezos posted on Instagram: "I've dreamed of going into space since I was five. I traveled with my brother on July 20.
If all goes according to plan, Bezos - the world's richest man with a net worth of $187 billion - will be the first multi-billion dollar space magnate to see the rocket technology he invested in take flight. Million dollars in development.
SpaceX owner Elon Musk has built a rocket powerful enough to go into orbit, but he hasn't announced any plans to travel to space with any of his company's capsules.
This flight uses the space company's six-seat capsule and a 59-foot rocket for an 11-minute flight to reach an altitude of more than 60 miles above the Earth's surface.
After six years of in-depth, clandestine testing of the New Shepherd rocket and space capsule, Blue Origin announced in May that it was preparing to send its first passengers to the New Shepherd space capsule.
The richest man in the world flies into space:
Although the company did not reveal how many general tickets it will receive, Blue Origin has announced that the winner of the month-long auction will receive a seat. On Monday morning, the bid was $2.8 million.
The richest man in the world founded Blue Origin in 2000. The company has conducted more than a dozen drone test flights at Blue Origin facilities in rural Texas.
Bezos founded Amazon as an online bookseller in 1994 and received $250,000 from his parents.
In the next few years, the site developed into one of the largest in the world.
In 1999, the popularity of Amazon helped increase Bezos' net worth to over $1 billion. He was named Person of the Year by Time magazine.
He founded Blue Origin in 2000. He sells over $1 billion in Amazon stock each year to fund the company's rocket development.
The richest people in the world still participate in Amazon. But he held the position of general manager. Andy Gacy followed him as CEO.
In addition to New Shepard, Blue Origin is also developing a rocket called New Glenn. The company hopes it will be used to launch US government and commercial satellites into orbit. And the ability to travel in space.
Blue Origin also hopes to join NASA's plan that will allow people to return to the moon before 2024. Although SpaceX has not been ruled out because it has signed a contract to build a lunar lander that can transport astronauts out of lunar orbit on the lunar surface.