Jeff Bezos is Going to Space
Hello fellow space enthusiasts! you may or may not have heard about Blue Origin. This small space company funded by Jeff Bezos has been working hard on a fully reusable, suborbital space tourist launcher named New Shepard. This vehicle has launched a whopping 15 times without a failure, and 14 of those missions successfully reused the booster (in fact Blue Origin was the first company to propulsively land a booster that has ventured into space).
Those tests were, albeit successful, but they have not launched any humans into space...
Until now! (just imagine one of those dramatic movie trailer voices.) The New Shepard capsule and launcher are getting ready for liftoff on the 20th at 1PM (MDT). This launch will be one of a kind, not only because the owner of the company is going to space, but Wally Funk, an american aviator is going there too.
Back in the late 50's and early 60's when the famous Mercury 7 astronauts were being trained, a brave soul named Wally Funk stepped up with 12 other women to train to become astronauts. Wally herself performed better than some of the original 7, but NASA did not accept.
Once she goes to space, she will be the most experienced pilot to ever go to space, which, I think is a very deserving title after all this time.
Two months ago, In the beginning of May, Blue Origin released This video, stating that they were auctioning a seat on New Shepard. A month later, they held the auction. The final bid was for 28 MILLION dollars. That is a lot of money. Then, a couple days ago; The bidder said they couldn't go because of "scheduling problems". They just wasted 28 million dollars to have scheduling problems. Because of that, the next-highest bidder, 27 million dollars was chosen. He is an 18 year old from Switzerland, and he gets to ride to space with Wally Funk, a famed pilot, Jeff Bezos, the richest person in the world, and Bezos's brother. That might not be worth $27M, but if I had that kind of money I would certainly do that.
A good video comparing Blue Origin to another space tourist company, Virgin Galactic is Everyday Astronaut's Virgin Galactic vs. Blue Origin | Scott Manley has a video about Wally Funk being chosen | And the live replay of the bid can be shown here, as well as the previous launch; NS-15. The video of Jeff Bezos talking to Wally Funk is here.
Thank you for coming, and keep sharing the passion of space with everyone!