‘Best day ever’: Jeff Bezos blasts off on his space company’s first passenger flight

Washington: Amazon founder Jeff Bezos and three fellow crew members safely completed his company Blue Origin’s first flight to space with passengers aboard, fulfilling a longtime dream for the world’s richest person.

After touching back down at the launch site at Van Horn, Texas, following the 10-minute sub-orbital journey, Bezos declared: “Best day ever.”

Blue Origin’s New Shepard rocket launches at Van Horn, Texas.Credit: AP

Bezos, who had dreamed of travelling to space since he was a child, was joined on the flight by his younger brother Mark, Dutch teenager Oliver Daemen and female aviation pioneer Mary Wallace “Wally” Funk.

Daemen, 18, became the youngest astronaut in history and 82-year-old Funk the oldest.

The Blue Origin flight came nine days after Virgin Galactic owner Richard Branson travelled to the edge of space from New Mexico.

Bezos and his crew travelled an estimated 106 kilometres, slightly further than Branson’s 85-kilometre ride. The Karman line, an attempt to delineate between Earth’s atmosphere and outer space, is 100 kilometres above sea level.

Bezos’ flight was also completely automated while Branson’s was piloted.

“My expectations were high and they were dramatically exceeded,” an ecstatic Bezos said at a press conference following the flight.

“It felt so serene and peaceful.”

Bezos said he was “awestruck” not just by the beauty of the earth but the fragility of the planet’s atmosphere.

Responding to criticism that he was just a billionaire on a joyride, Bezos said he hoped the flight would be the first step in a process that would eventually see environmentally-damaging industries relocated to other planets in order to protect Earth.

“We need to take all heavy industry – all polluting industry – and move it into space,” Bezos said, a project he conceded would take decades at least to achieve.

“You have to remember: big things start small.”

Bezos, 57, spoke in his high school graduation speech about his dreams for a day when mankind colonises space.

Bezos had dreamed of travelling to space since he was a child.Credit: AP

While Bezos remains the chairman of e-commerce giant Amazon, he stepped down as company chief executive earlier this month. He said he now intends to focus on Blue Origin’s efforts to explore space, as well as his philanthropic efforts to tackle climate change.

“I want to thank every Amazon employee and customer because you guys paid for this,” he said after the flight.

Bezos has an estimated net worth of $US205 billion ($280 billion), according to Forbes.

The Blue Origin rocket was named New Shepard in honour of America’s first astronaut Alan Shepard. The fight was timed to coincide with the 52nd anniversary of the Apollo 11 moon landing.

The flight was also the realisation of a dream for Funk, one of 13 female pilots who went through the same tests as NASA’s all-male astronaut corps in the early 1960s but never made it into space.

“I’ve been waiting a long time to finally get up there,” Funk said after returning to Earth.

Alongside them was Blue Origin’s first paying customer, 18-year old Oliver Daemen, who filled in at the last minute for the mystery winner of a $28 million auction who opted to join a later flight.

Daemen’s father took part in the auction, and agreed on a lower undisclosed price last week when Blue Origin offered his son the empty seat.

From left: Mark Bezos, Jeff Bezos, Oliver Daemen and Wally Funk.Credit: AP

Tesla chief executive Elon Musk’s company SpaceX is scheduled to launch a four-person flight to space in September. The three-day flight would be the first human spaceflight to orbit Earth with only private citizens on board.

Blue Origin has not yet opened ticket sales to the public or revealed the price of a trip to the edge of space.

Virgin Galactic already has more than 600 reservations at $US250,000 ($341,000) apiece.

With AP, Bloomberg

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