Wealthy EarthlingJeff Bezosis set to go out his home planet for the first time today aboardBlue Origin ’s initiatory crewed spaceflight . Takeoff is scheduled for 8:00 am primal time ( 9:00 am ET ; 2:00 pm BST ) , and the whole mission will be uncommitted to catch via the alive watercourse on this varlet .
The webcast is slate to start 90 minute of arc before launching time , with theAmazon founderset to go up aboard the New Shepard suborbital rocket system around half an minute prior to departure . follow Bezos will be a gang made up of his brother Mark , 82 - twelvemonth - old aviation veteranWally Funk , and teenager Oliver Daemen , who will become Blue Origin ’s first paying passenger .
launch from a distant site in western Texas , New Shepard will contain its crew beyond the Kármán origin , which represents the threshold of space and posture some 100 kilometers ( 62 Swedish mile ) above the ground . The entire charge will last a mere 11 minutes , with the gang experiencing a few minute of weightlessness while at the crown of their trajectory track . A post - flight press conference will then be live - streamed on the Blue Origin site about two hours after the abridgement touches down .
The world ’s richest human beings , Bezos founded Blue Origin back in 2000 with the aim of transporting tourists to infinite . alas for him , he was circumvent to the punch earlier this calendar month when rival billionaireRichard Branson reached the border of spaceaboard Virgin Galactic ’s VSS Unity spaceplane . However , that flight only reached an EL of 86 kilometer ( 53.5 miles ) , which means that if all goes to programme , Bezos will travel further from the dry land than any business organization tycoon has ever ventured before .
Such a feat will be made possible by New Shepard ’s H - fuel rocket booster , which will propel the crew upward before detach from the capsule and returning to the launching internet site . Bezos and his fellow traveler will then fill out the final part of their ascent in the space capsule itself , which will then parachute back to Earth once the desire elevation has been attained .
