One of those is an anonymous customer who bid $28 million for a chance to fly on this inaugural flight but had to postpone the trip to space at the last minute because of “scheduling conflicts,” the company said.īlue Origin also has loftier projects waiting in the wings. It’s not clear how hefty the price tag for that opportunity will be-but Blue Origin says it has a list of passengers waiting for their turn to make the parabolic journey. Those flights will allow up to six people at a time to experience the brief thrill ride to space, which includes some four minutes of weightlessness. Like the latter, which flew Branson into space on July 11, Blue Origin plans to offer customer flights aboard New Shepard starting later this year. The company has been relatively secretive about the development of its spacecraft compared to industry rivals SpaceX, founded by Elon Musk, and Virgin Galactic, helmed by Richard Branson. Tuesday’s 10-minute flight marks a milestone for Blue Origin. “It’s nice that they’ve finally decided that now is the time-they’ve had this plan for years, so this is a long time coming.” A small step toward a big dream “I’ve been waiting for years to see, when are they going to decide to fly humans?” says Laura Seward Forczyk, founder of the aerospace consulting firm Astralytical, about Blue Origin. Daemen’s father paid an undisclosed amount for his son to experience weightlessness, see the darkened sky, and gaze at Earth’s curved horizon for a few fleeting minutes. “It’s dark up here!” Funk exclaimed as she floated in space.Ĭompleting the crew is Oliver Daemen, an 18-year-old from the Netherlands, now the youngest person to visit space. And perhaps outshining the Bezos brothers, at least for those versed in aerospace history, is Wally Funk, an 82-year old aviator who has dreamed of being an astronaut since the early days of NASA’s human spaceflight program-when she trained to be an astronaut and outperformed the seven men chosen for the Mercury program on many of the tests, but did not get a chance to go to space. His brother Mark joined him for the inaugural flight. One of the passengers was Jeff Bezos, founder of Blue Origin and currently the world’s richest person. The flight carried a haphazard crew by spaceflight standards.
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