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Jeff Bezos and Blue Origin complete successful spaceflight

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By William Harwood

Updated on: July 20, 2021 / 8:46 PM EDT / CBS News

Riding his own rocket, Amazon and Blue Origin founder Jeff Bezos streaked into space Tuesday on a thrilling 10-minute up-and-down flight, a high-tech joyride that sets the stage for the start of commercial passenger service later this year.

"Best day ever!" an elated Bezos said upon landing.

Competing head to head with fellow billionaire Richard Branson, who flew into space aboard his Virgin Galactic rocketplane July 11, Bezos blasted off with his brother Mark and two history-making passengers: 82-year-old aviation pioneer Wally Funk , the oldest person to fly in space, and Oliver Daemen , an 18-year-old Dutch student who is the youngest ever to fly in space.

Funk, who was barred from NASA's initially all-male astronaut corps in the 1960s, finally got her chance to prove the naysayers wrong, realizing a lifelong dream. 

The crew lifted off from the company's West Texas launch site at 9:12 a.m. EDT. 

Climbing straight up atop 110,000 pounds of push, the rocket rapidly accelerated as it consumed its load of supercold liquid oxygen and hydrogen propellants, pushing the passengers back in their recliner-style seats with about three times the normal force of gravity.

In a little more than two minutes, the spacecraft was shooting skyward at three times the speed of sound, dwindling to a blur more than 30 miles up. A few seconds later, at an altitude of about 45 miles, the booster's company-designed BE-3 main engine shut down and the crew capsule was released to fly on its own.

Coasting upward along an unpowered ballistic trajectory, Bezos and his crewmates enjoyed about three minutes of weightlessness, unstrapping, floating about the cabin and taking in the view through the largest windows ever built into a spacecraft.

"I love it!" Funk exclaimed.

Tossing candy and ping pong balls back and forth, doing somersaults and marveling at the view, the crew cavorted like school kids, clearly thrilled by the experience.

"Who wants a Skittle?" Bezos called. "All right, see if you can catch this in your mouth." Daemen did just that, prompting cheers in the cabin. "Toss me one," Bezos said. "Awesome!"

“Who wants a Skittle?”: New footage from inside the capsule shows how Jeff Bezos, Mark Bezos, Wally Funk and Oliver Daemen spent their time in space https://t.co/5C820HM4EM pic.twitter.com/excCMRm1Zg — CBS News (@CBSNews) July 20, 2021

"That is just incredible," Daemen said a moment later.

"I love it, I love it," Funk said again. She could be seen floating in front of a window, staring out at Earth and space, a view she had dreamed about for decades.

The capsule, named "First Step," reached a maximum altitude of 66.5 miles, more than four miles above the internationally recognized 62-mile-high "boundary" between the aerodynamically discernible atmosphere and space.

That's the altitude recognized by the Fédération Aéronautique Internationale, a Switzerland-based organization that sanctions aerospace records.

Branson's Virgin Galactic spaceplane flies about 10 miles lower but well above the 50-mile altitude recognized by NASA and the Federal Aviation Administration as the point where wings, rudders and other aerosurfaces no longer have any effect.

Two minutes after booster engine shutdown and the onset of weightlessness, the crew was warned they had about a minute to make their way back to their seats to strap in for re-entry. All too soon, weight returned as both began falling back into the lower atmosphere.

The crew had no problems strapping back in. And even on the way down, the view was spectacular. "It's dark up here!" Funk exclaimed. One of her crewmates could be heard saying "well, that was intense" while another said he was "happy, happy, happy!"

The reusable New Shepard booster, meanwhile, headed back to Earth on its own, plunging tail first toward a landing pad two miles from the launch site.

The rocket relied on deployable air brakes and steering fins to maintain its orientation before re-igniting its BE-3 engine, unfolding four hinged legs and settling to a picture-perfect landing.

"Your booster has landed," Blue Origin capsule communicator, or CAPCOM, Sarah Knights radioed the crew.

"It's great to hear about the booster," Bezos replied replied. "You have a very happy crew up here, I want you to know."

At an altitude of about 2,700 feet, three large parachutes unfurled and inflated, slowing the New Shepard's descent to about 16 mph.

Then, just six feet or so off the ground, nitrogen powered thrusters fired, slowing the capsule to just 1 mph and kicking up a roiling cloud of dust as the spacecraft gently touched down.

"Welcome back to Earth, First Step, congratulations to all of you," Knights radioed.

"Very happy group of people in this capsule," Bezos replied. "We're so grateful to everybody who made this possible. Thank you."

Blue Origin recovery crews converged on the capsule within minutes of touchdown to open the hatch and help the returning astronauts exit. All four emerged in obvious high spirits, smiling and hugging family members and support personnel.

"Oh my God!" Bezos told reporters later. "My expectations were high, and they were drastically exceeded. The zero G (gravity) piece may have been one of the biggest surprises because it felt so normal, it felt almost like humans evolved to be in that environment. ... It's a very pleasurable experience."

The most profound aspect, he said, was the view of Earth from an altitude that showcased the fragility of the planet and its thin atmosphere.

"Every astronaut, everybody who's been up into space, they say this, that it changes them, and they look at it and they're kind of amazed and awestruck by the Earth and it beauty, but also by its fragility," he said. "And I can vouch for that.

"It's one thing to recognize that intellectually, it's another thing to actually see with your own eyes how fragile it really is. And that was amazing."

Funk, who once underwent grueling medical tests only to be barred from NASA's early astronaut corps, said she enjoyed "every minute of it."

"I want to thank you, sweetheart, because you made it possible for me," she told Bezos. "I've been waiting a long time to finally get it up there. ... I loved it. I loved being here with all of you, your families. We had a great time. It was wonderful. I want to go again, fast!"

"I have been waiting a long time to finally get up there" Wally Funk, who was barred from NASA's initially all-male astronaut corps in the 1960s, finally got her chance to go to space, realizing a lifelong dream. pic.twitter.com/Hvt9VihQV8 — CBS News (@CBSNews) July 20, 2021

Former astronaut Jeff Ashby, now chief of mission assurance at Blue Origin, pinned astronaut wings on all four crew members. 

As for Tuesday's flight, it was the 16th successful launch of a New Shepard spacecraft, the third for the booster and First Step capsule, and Blue Origin's first with passengers on board.

Blue Origin plans to launch three more New Shepard flights before the end of the year, one with science payloads on board and two with passengers.

"We're going to fly human missions twice more this year," Bezos said. "What we do in the following year, I'm not sure yet. We'll figure that out and what the cadence will eventually be. We want the cadence to be very high."

He added, "We're approaching $100 million in private sales already and the demand is very, very high. So we're going to keep after that."

Ticket prices have not been revealed. The cost of a flight aboard Virgin Galactic's spaceplane is believed to be around $250,000 and Blue Origin tickets are expected to be competitive. But both companies hope economies of scale will eventually lower prices to less astronomical levels.

"We're not done once we fly this vehicle, it's really just the beginning," Lai said. "We are going to ramp up operations. We're going to have dozens and eventually hundreds and thousands of astronauts we hope fly on New Shepard. So it is just the beginning. But it is a monumental moment nevertheless."

CBS News' Mark Strassmann reports on the historic journey in the video below:

Jeff Bezos shares emotional moment in exclusive interview

Jeff and Mark Bezos sat down for an exclusive interview with "CBS This Morning" co-host Gayle King after they landed back on Earth.

"Clearly it's a bonding moment for the two of you. Did you have a moment with the two of you up there?" King asked.

"We had a couple of those moments," Jeff Bezos replied. "We had about, I don't know, 25 minutes on the ground, with the crew capsules sealed. So it's just the four of us in there, and my brother and I, we picked seats so that we could see each other from our seats … We had some really good, quality time there." 

Before liftoff, mission control read them a message from their sister, Christina: "Now hurry up and your a-- back down here so I can give you a huge hug. We love you and Godspeed," her message said. 

"I actually teared up right there in the capsule," Jeff Bezos said. "It was so heartfelt and, you know, she talked about some of the things we did as kids. It was a very sweet message." 

Watch more of Gayle King's interview with Jeff and Mark Bezos on " CBS This Morning " on Wednesday.

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Bezos announces major philanthropic donation

Bezos capped off his post-landing press conference by announcing a new philanthropic initiative, the Courage and Civility Award. Recipients will be given $100 million to distribute to the charities and nonprofits of their choice.

"It recognizes leaders who aim high and who pursue solutions with courage and who always do so with civility," Bezos said. "It's easy to be courageous but also mean. Try being courageous and civil. Try being courageous and a unifier. That's harder, and way better, and makes the world better."

He announced two recipients Tuesday: Van Jones, a lawyer, TV commentator and co-founder of Dream Corps, which is focused on criminal justice reform; and chef José Andrés , founder of World Central Kitchen, which provides meals in the wake of natural disasters.

Both men will receive $100 million, Bezos said, with "no bureaucracy, no committees, they just do what they want. They can give it all to their own charity or they can share the wealth. It's up to them."

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Jeff Bezos on the most profound moment of spaceflight

Shortly after landing, Jeff Bezos told CBS News' Mark Strassmann that he felt at peace up at the edge of space. 

"The most interesting thing about that is it felt so normal and natural. Almost like we were, humans were evolved to be in zero G. Which of course is impossible, but it felt that way. It felt peaceful, serene and calm, surprisingly natural," Bezos said. 

The most profound moment, he said, was when he looked out at the Earth's atmosphere and realized how "teensy" it was.

"You hear about that, but to see it is a different thing. We think the atmosphere is gigantic because it is all around us, but in reality, when you get up there, you can see it is life-sustaining and teensy."

Bezos said spaceflight was a humbling experience.

"You look at this thing, and you see how small you are, and you see that the world is big, you see that the atmosphere is small. You see that there are no boundaries or no lines, no national states," Bezos said.  "This world is full of not enough unifiers and too many vilifiers. When you get up there, you see that we are one world, this is one planet, and we should have a lot of unifiers."

While Bezos' space dream became a reality when he blasted off aboard his New Shepard rocket, he says this is just the beginning. Asked if today's flight will motivate him to push deeper into the cosmos, Bezos replied, "Hell yes!"

"Hell yes!": Jeff Bezos tells CBS News' Mark Strassmann that this morning's successful Blue Origin flight will motivate him to push deeper into space. https://t.co/NTBGPuuMhx pic.twitter.com/FFBB2wjack — CBS News (@CBSNews) July 20, 2021

"We are already building our orbital vehicle. We have to build a road to space. This … tourism mission is about practicing. You can fly this over and over again and get really good at it. Because we have to have space vehicles that are operable as commercial airliners," he said. "Then the next generation of kids can build truly great things in space and move all heavy industry and polluting industry off Earth and protect this gem of a planet." 

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"How it felt? Oh my God!"

The crew held a press conference at the Blue Origin launch facility to talk about their flight about two and a half hours after landing.

Jeff Bezos thanked the team and added, "I want to thank every Amazon employee, and every Amazon customer because you guys paid for all this."

He said the spaceflight experience was even better than he hoped.

"How it felt? Oh my God! My expectations were high but they were drastically exceeded," he said.

Jeff Bezos says he will definitely be flying into space again "soon" https://t.co/5C820HM4EM pic.twitter.com/D921o1QxgC — CBS News (@CBSNews) July 20, 2021

"I felt great," said crewmate Wally Funk, who first sought to join NASA's astronaut corps in the 1960s.

"I want to thank you, sweetheart, because you made it possible for me," she said to Bezos. "I have been waiting a long time to finally get up there."

“We can confirm that Wally, once again in training, outperformed the men, 100%,” Jeff Bezos says of aviation icon Wally Funk https://t.co/5C820HM4EM pic.twitter.com/T6mNgKFqeV — CBS News (@CBSNews) July 20, 2021

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Who is Wally Funk?

Wally Funk , a trailblazing aviator, became the oldest person ever to travel to space with  Tuesday's flight.

The 82-year-old had her first flight lesson at age 9, became a licensed pilot at 17 and has logged more than 19,000 flying hours. But her lifelong dream of going to space eluded her — until now.

In the 1960s, while America's first astronauts were going through NASA's rigorous training, Funk was part of the Mercury 13, a group of 13 women who went through the same grueling exams. She recently described to CBS News' Michelle Miller some of the painful and strenuous tests the group of women endured.

"X-raying all over your body, every bone, every tooth, sticking water into your ears. I had to drink radioactive water," she said.

The women of Mercury 13 met — and often surpassed — the results of the men. But the women would never get their chance. NASA required astronauts to be military test pilots, and the military at the time didn't allow women to fly.

On Tuesday, though, her dream was realized.

"I'm going. That is my quest," she said ahead of the spaceflight. "I love flying, that's my job, that's what I love. And I'm not a quitter." 

At a press conference after landing, she grinned from ear to ear as she received her astronaut wings for the achievement.

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Celebrating with a champagne shower

Jeff Bezos and his crewmates were greeted by cheering family members and friends upon their return. Bezos and others popped bottles of champagne in celebration, showering the crew with it.

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Picture-perfect landing

Eight minutes after liftoff, the three parachutes deployed on the crew capsule to slow it down for landing as it descended back to Earth.

The capsule landed with a gentle touchdown at 9:22 a.m. EDT.

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Jeff Bezos and three crewmates blasted off at 9:12 a.m. EDT on Blue Origin's first passenger space flight. The thrilling 10-minute up-and-down flight to an altitude of over 62 miles above the Earth is intended to set the stage for the start of commercial passenger service later this year.

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"Brief hold" is lifted, with crew in the capsule ready to go

The four crew members are strapped into their seats and ready for launch, but with about 15 minutes left in the countdown Blue Origin said there would be a "brief hold." It did not explain the reason for the delay. Most of the company's recent test flights have also had at least brief delays before launching.

The hold was lifted a few minutes later and the countdown resumed.

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Astronauts head to the launch pad

The crew emerged from Blue Origin's astronaut training center and climbed into an SUV for the ride to the launch pad about 45 minutes ahead of the scheduled launch time. A few minutes later they arrived and climbed the stairs to board the crew capsule.

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Final preparations underway

"CBS This Morning" co-host Gayle King reports from the launch site near Van Horn, Texas, that weather conditions look good for launch Tuesday morning. Blue Origin says the crew is ready to go.

"Our astronauts have completed training and are a go for launch," the company tweeted .

"#NewShepard is on the pad. The launch team completed vehicle rollout this morning and final preparations are underway." 

#NewShepard is on the pad. The launch team completed vehicle rollout this morning and final preparations are underway. Liftoff is targeted for 8:00 am CDT / 13:00 UTC. Live broadcast begins at T-90 minutes on https://t.co/7Y4TherpLr . #NSFirstHumanFlight pic.twitter.com/oShmtRmA4n — Blue Origin (@blueorigin) July 20, 2021

The launch is scheduled for a significant date in space history — the 52nd anniversary of the  Apollo 11 moon landing .

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New Shepard rocket designed to be "the safest human spaceflight vehicle"

When he launches into space, Jeff Bezos will be giving his company's product the ultimate endorsement: riding on a fully automated rocket that has never before carried a human to the edge of space.

"We set out to create the safest human spaceflight vehicle ever designed or built or operated," said Gary Lai, director of design for the New Shepard.

The system's safety features include three braking parachutes and thrusters to slow the capsule right before landing so it touches down at just 1 mile per hour.

"The capsule is designed to be survivable if only one of the main parachutes opens," Lai told CBS News correspondent Mark Strassmann. The system "will do its utmost to slow the vehicle down, but then there is a crushable structure at the bottom of the capsule that will absorb some of the impact, and then the seat has an energy absorption mechanism, a scissor mechanism, that then takes the astronaut and decelerates them at a safe velocity."

Another safety feature is the integrated, autonomous escape system. 

Ariane Cornell, director of astronaut and orbital sales at Blue Origin, explained, "If there's any issue detected with the rocket ... we will fire this escape motor to get the capsule far and fast away from the booster."

And they've made sure it works at every stage of the mission: on the launch pad, in flight and all the way in space. In all 15 test flights, the capsule returned safely to the ground.

"There's a lot of people, hundreds of engineers over the years that have worked on this vehicle. So this is a culmination of a dream for them," Lai said.

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Meet the Blue Origin crew

Jeff Bezos, the founder of Amazon and one of the wealthiest men in the world with a net worth of more than $200 billion, started Blue Origin in 2000 to turn his dream of commercial spaceflight into reality. Two decades later, he announced plans to board its first passenger flight along with his younger brother, Mark.

"Ever since I was five years old, I've dreamed of traveling to space," Bezos wrote on  Instagram . "On July 20th, I will take that journey with my brother. The greatest adventure, with my best friend."

He later introduced two more crewmates:  Wally Funk , a legendary pilot who was one of the 13 female fliers tested but ultimately barred from NASA's initially all-male astronaut corps in the 1960s, and teenage space enthusiast Oliver Daemen, whose family paid an undisclosed sum for his seat.

All four talked about their excitement in an interview on "CBS This Morning" the day before launch.

The flight was originally supposed to include the winner of an online auction who bid $28 million for the privilege, but that anonymous bidder had a schedule conflict and opted to join a later flight instead.

The crew was slated to undergo 14 hours of training over two days to familiarize them with the spacecraft, but they won't actually be flying it themselves — the New Shepard is fully automated , with no pilots or flight controls onboard.

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Billionaire owners deny it's a "space race" as they vie for wealthy passengers

After Bezos announced his launch plans, Richard Branson, owner of the rival space company Virgin Galactic, upstaged him by lifting off on his own sub-orbital flight on July 11. But they both insist they don't view the competition as a "space race."

"I've said this so many times, it really wasn't a race," Branson said after landing. "We're just delighted that everything went so fantastically well. We wish Jeff the absolute best and the people who are going up with him during his flight."

Blue Origin, in its  mission statement , says "we are not in a race" and vows to pursue its goal of "building a road to space" according to its Latin motto,  Gradatim Ferociter : "Step by step, ferociously."

Yet both are looking for an edge in the emerging business of launching paying customers on short trips to space. 

Virgin Galactic plans to start regular commercial operations in early 2022, and is aiming to carry out 400 flights per year from Spaceport America, its base in New Mexico. Some 600 tickets have already been sold, including to Hollywood celebrities, for prices ranging between $200,000 and $250,000. Tickets are expected to be even more expensive when they go on sale to the public.

Blue Origin has yet to announce ticket prices or a date for the start of commercial operations. 

However, while the companies are enthusiastic, the idea of billionaire owners and wealthy passengers spending huge sums on space tourism has sparked some backlash. 

"Jeff Bezos' 11-minute thrill ride to space is an insult to the millions of people here on planet Earth who struggle every day to feed their families and make ends meet," Oxfam America said in a statement. "Many of them are the very Amazon workers who helped make Bezos the richest man in the world."

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Blue Origin vs Virgin Galactic: How their spacecraft compare

Virgin Galactic and Blue Origin chose different routes to space.

Virgin Galactic's VSS Unity spaceplane, which carries two pilots and up to six passengers, is launched from a carrier jet that flies it up an altitude of about 45,000 feet. From there, it is released and fires its rocket engine to propel it to an altitude of a little over 50 miles above the Earth. 

The crew gets to experience about three minutes of weightlessness before the spaceplane begins a spiraling descent and glides to a runway landing.  Branson's flight  lasted 59 minutes from takeoff to touchdown.

Blue Origin's crew capsule launches vertically atop a reusable single-stage rocket and then soars out of the lower atmosphere on its own to an altitude higher than 62 miles before arcing over and beginning a parachute descent back to Earth. The entire flight lasts about 10 minutes.

Though Blue Origin's flight is shorter, both companies offer passengers about the same amount of time in weightlessness.

NASA, the Federal Aviation Administration and the U.S. Space Force agree that space effectively begins at an altitude of 50 miles, so Branson's flight earned him his "astronaut wings."

The Fédération Aéronautique Internationale (FAI), an international body based in Switzerland that certifies aerospace records, considers an altitude of 100 kilometers, or 62 miles — a level known as the Kármán Line — as the dividing line between the discernible atmosphere and space. 

Blue Origin's spacecraft is designed to reach that higher altitude, and the company boasted in a tweet : "None of our astronauts have an asterisk next to their name." 

Virgin Galactic says the altitude difference is trivial and that no such "asterisk" is warranted given that NASA and other U.S. authorities all consider altitudes higher than 50 miles to be in space.

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How to watch the Blue Origin space launch

• What:  Jeff Bezos and three crewmates launch aboard Blue Origin's New Shepard spacecraft
• Date:  Tuesday, July 20, 2021
• Time:  Liftoff currently targeted for 9 a.m. EDT
• Location:  Blue Origin's Launch Site One, in the desert near Van Horn, Texas
• On TV:  "CBS This Morning" co-host Gayle King and "CBS Evening News" anchor Norah O'Donnell lead CBS News' Special Report on the launch — coverage begins at 8:59 a.m. EDT on  your local CBS station
• Online stream:  Watch live on  CBSN  in the video player above or on your  mobile or streaming device  — coverage begins at 8:15 a.m. EDT
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• Blue Origin

Bill Harwood has been covering the U.S. space program full-time since 1984, first as Cape Canaveral bureau chief for United Press International and now as a consultant for CBS News.

Amazon's Jeff Bezos makes history with all-civilian suborbital flight

Jeff Bezos, the 57-year-old founder of Amazon, has a new title to add to his résumé: astronaut.

Bezos successfully flew to the edge of space Tuesday aboard a rocket and capsule developed by his private spaceflight company, Blue Origin. The billionaire entrepreneur made history by being part of the first unpiloted suborbital flight with an all-civilian crew. The much-anticipated trip was also the first crewed launch for Blue Origin’s New Shepard rocket.

Bezos launched at around 9:11 a.m. ET from a site in the west Texas desert southeast of El Paso. After liftoff, the New Shepard rocket accelerated toward space at three times the speed of sound. At an altitude of 250,000 feet, the capsule separated, taking Bezos and his crew to the edge of space. The craft then descended under parachutes and landed again in the Texas desert. The entire flight lasted roughly 10 minutes.

"Best day ever," Bezos radioed to mission controllers after touching down.

Bezos’ flight was a suborbital jaunt, which means he and his crew members didn’t actually enter into orbit around Earth. Rather, the capsule reached the edge of space, at an altitude of more than 65 miles, where the passengers experienced roughly four minutes of weightlessness.

Bezos’ launch was just nine days after another billionaire, British entrepreneur Richard Branson, flew to the edge of space on a rocket-powered vehicle designed by his own space tourism company, Virgin Galactic. Both flights — combined with the competition between the rival billionaires — have captured global attention and garnered interest and enthusiasm for the nascent space tourism industry.

Joining Bezos on the flight were his brother, Mark, and Wally Funk, 82, a former test pilot who was one of the Mercury 13 women who underwent training in the 1960s to demonstrate that women could qualify for NASA’s astronaut corps. Funk is now the oldest person to reach space.

Rounding out the four-person crew was Oliver Daemen, 18, of the Netherlands , who now holds the title of the youngest astronaut.

In a post-launch press conference, Bezos described the thrill of launching to the edge of space.

"My expectations were high and they were dramatically exceeded," he said.

He also spoke about gazing back at the planet and how that experience reinforced his commitment to solving climate change .

"It's actually incredibly thin," Bezos said about Earth's atmosphere. "It's one thing to recognize that intellectually. It's another thing to see with your own eyes how fragile it is."

Although Bezos’ suborbital experience was similar to that of Branson, Blue Origin and Virgin Galactic operate with different flight profiles. Virgin Galactic’s rocket-powered Unity craft launches from a carrier airplane from an altitude of 50,000 feet and is flown by two onboard pilots. Blue Origin’s New Shepard rocket and capsule launch vertically and are designed to fly autonomously. Both the rocket and capsule are also designed to be reusable.

Blue Origin’s capsule is also designed to reach a higher altitude than Virgin Galactic’s vehicle. The edge of space is often defined by the so-called Kármán line, at 62 miles. The New Shepard capsule flies above the Kármán line, while Virgin Galactic’s craft reached an altitude of around 53 miles during Branson’s flight, which fueled a budding rivalry between the companies.

The Federal Aviation Administration and the U.S. Air Force recognize the boundary of space at 50 miles, which means Bezos, Branson and their fellow passengers are all be eligible to get their commercial astronaut wings.

Bezos’ flight was a critical milestone for Blue Origin and the commercial spaceflight industry, which until now has been dominated by Elon Musk’s SpaceX. Both Branson’s and Bezos’ flights could open up a potentially lucrative new market for high-priced trips to the edge of space.

Blue Origin hasn’t yet announced the cost of tickets on suborbital joyrides, but they are expected to cost several hundreds of thousands of dollars. Bezos said the company is planning two more crewed launches this year, and eventually hopes to fly with more regularity. He added that interest skyrocketed after Blue Origin announced earlier this year that it would auction off a seat on a future flight.

"We're approaching $100 million in private sales already," Bezos said during the news briefing. "The demand is very high."

Still, it will probably take some time to build up the space tourism industry, said Marco Caceres, a space industry analyst with Teal Group Corp., an aerospace and defense market analysis firm.

“The flights with these billionaires is good for exposure and attracts attention, but what’s going to add confidence is regularity,” he said. “It’ll be important for these companies to show that they can do lots of flights with no significant problems and no major accidents.”

In addition to suborbital trips offered by Virgin Galactic and Blue Origin, SpaceX is planning orbital tourism flights beginning later this year with the  first mission to space with an all-civilian crew .

While the cost of suborbital and orbital trips will be out of reach for most people, Bezos has spoken about the importance of opening up access to space, particularly for young scientists and explorers.

“This is about building a road to space so that future generations can do incredible things in space,” he said Monday on the “TODAY” show.

Bezos, Branson and Musk have all faced backlash for what some consider to be ego-driven or frivolous ventures. But for Jim Cantrell, CEO of Phantom Space, an Arizona-based startup that aims to build and launch commercial satellites, the criticisms don’t take into account the potential long-term benefits of investing in space technologies.

“These guys are doing something that they think is fundamental to the future of humanity, and this is just an initial step,” said Cantrell, a former executive at SpaceX.

“It’s entrepreneurs who have helped solve a lot of the problems on Earth,” he said. “People ought to welcome this spirit of exploration, because it’s the same kind of mentalities that found cures for diseases and gave us better medicines.”

Denise Chow is a reporter for NBC News Science focused on general science and climate change.

New Shepard is ushering in a new generation of astronauts.

Soar Above the Kármán Line

Return to Earth, Forever Changed

New Shepard astronauts ascend toward space at more than three times the speed of sound. They pass the Kármán line, the internationally recognized boundary of space 62 miles (100 km) above Earth, before unbuckling to float weightless and gaze at our planet. The crew returns gently under parachutes, forever changed.

Inside the Capsule

Every Seat is a Window Seat

Gaze upon Earth from giant windows comprising one-third of the capsule’s surface area. The spacious and pressurized capsule seats six and is climate-controlled for comfort.

Learn, Train, Fly

Time to Train

Our on-site astronaut training program is meticulously designed to teach everything you’ll need to know for a safe spaceflight. Over two days, you’ll learn about New Shepard’s mission profile, safety systems, zero-g protocols, and execute mission simulations.

Welcome to West Texas

The Pioneering Spirit of Launch Site One

Spectacular sunrises, sunsets, and stargazing abound at Launch Site One, nestled in the Guadalupe Mountains near Van Horn, TX. You and your crew will stay at Astronaut Village, cultivating fellowship and memories to last a lifetime.

For the Benefit of Earth

Fully Reusable and Carbon-Free

Nearly 99% of New Shepard’s dry mass is reused, including its capsule, booster, and engine. During flight, the only byproduct of New Shepard’s engine combustion is water vapor with no carbon emissions.

Safety at the Center

Safety, Our Highest Priority

New Shepard began flying humans in 2021 following the conclusion of a rigorous flight test program. The crew capsule has numerous redundant safety systems. Its crew escape system has been successfully tested three times, demonstrating that it can activate safely during any phase of flight.

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Jeff Bezos hails ‘best day ever’ after successful Blue Origin space flight

• Suborbital flight on New Shepard rocket lasted 11 minutes
• Bezos blasted for traveling to space as Amazon workers toil

The Amazon founder Jeff Bezos hailed “the best day ever” after completing his pioneering foray into space on Tuesday with three crewmates, among them his brother Mark.

The billionaire’s New Shepard rocket and capsule touched down in the Texas desert after a suborbital flight that lasted a mere 11 minutes, but set several records for his Blue Origin space company, including the oldest and youngest humans to fly into space.

Wally Funk, an 82-year-old female aviation pioneer who trained as an astronaut in the 1960s, flew as Bezos’s guest, while Oliver Daemen, 18, a student from the Netherlands and son of a private enquiry firm’s chief executive, was Blue Origin’s first paying customer.

The world’s richest man with an estimated net worth of $206bn, Bezos, 57, sprayed champagne and shouted his enjoyment after the successful landing of New Shepard’s first crewed mission following 15 uncrewed test flights.

“It was the best day ever,” Bezos said after emerging from the capsule, adding that he felt “unbelievably good” and that his colleagues were “a very happy crew”.

The tycoon, however, has also attracted criticism for putting his fortune into space tourism amid concerns over working conditions at Amazon, and “aggressive” tax avoidance .

In recent years, Bezos, who stood down as Amazon chief executive this month to concentrate on the space company he founded in 2000, has sold about $1bn in Amazon stock annually to fund Blue Origin.

In a post-flight press conference on Tuesday, Bezos said the venture had reinforced his commitment to tackling the climate crisis, and using New Shepard as a stepping stone towards colonising space for the benefit of Earth.

“The whole point of doing this is to practice,” said Bezos, who announced in February that he was donating $10bn to efforts to “ preserve and protect the natural world ”.

“Every time we fly this tourism mission we’re practicing flying the second stage of New Glenn,” he added, referring to Blue Origin’s planned reusable heavy-lift launch vehicle , which is central to his vision of ultimately moving industry off the planet.

“We’re going to build a road to space so our kids, and their kids, can build the future. This is not about escaping Earth … this is the only good planet in the solar system and we have to take care of it. When you go to space and see how fragile it is you want to take care of it even more.”

Bezos, who donated the proceeds from the New Shepard seat auction to Blue Origin’s Club for the Future to encourage young people to pursue careers in space and science, also announced two $100m “ Courage and Civility” awards for recipients to donate to charities of their choice.

Asked if he would fly into space again, Bezos was unequivocal.

“Hell yes,” he said. “How fast can you refuel that thing? Let’s go.”

The firm intends to run regular space tourism flights for commercial passengers.

New Shepard, named as a tribute to Alan Shepard, the first American in Space in 1961, blasted off into a clear blue sky from the launchpad in Van Horn, Texas, at 8.12am local time, the first of three scheduled flights this year, on the 52nd anniversary of the Apollo 11 moon landing.

The crew capsule successfully separated from its rocket booster shortly before reaching the 62-mile altitude Kármán Line , the internationally accepted boundary of space, after about three minutes of flight.

The crew experienced about three to four minutes of weightlessness during which the spacecraft reached the top of its flight path at 66.5 miles, more than 10 miles higher than the British billionaire Sir Richard Branson’s flight to the edge of space aboard Virgin Galactic’s VSS Unity nine days earlier.

Audio from the capsule on Blue Origin’s live webcast of the flight captured the crew members shouting in excitement as they floated around the spacecraft. Video was later released.

After re-entering Earth’s atmosphere, the capsule glided to a gentle landing on parachutes, minutes after the reusable booster made a powered landing on a nearby pad.

Mark Bezos assumed the moniker “Astronaut Demo”, for the flight to distinguish him from his brother, Astronaut Bezos. Their sister Christina, director of the family foundation, sent her siblings a message before the flight, reminding them how they would pretend to be Star Trek characters as children.

“As you buckle in, I’m reminded of when Jeff was Captain Kirk, Mark, you were Sulu, and I took the role of Uhura, we would battle Klingons while firing torpedoes, all the while dodging in and out of traffic and praying that we make it to our destination safely,” she said.

“Mark, be prepared to fire those torpedoes in order to do so. Now, get your asses back down here so I can give you a big hug. We love you, and Godspeed New Shepard.”

Blue Origin has opened sales for space tourism flights but has not set a price or revealed how much Daemen paid. The winning bid in a June auction for the first seat was $28m (£20m), the winner pulling out of Tuesday’s flight because of a “scheduling conflict”.

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Jeff Bezos Knows Who Paid for Him to Go to Space

The world’s richest man commissioned the rocket, but his Amazon empire—the customers and the workers—covered the bill.

Updated at 1:45 p.m. ET on July 20, 2021.

VAN HORN, Texas—Jeff Bezos really flew to space. This morning, the richest person on Earth boarded a reusable rocket he dreamed up and funded, launched to the edge of space to experience a few minutes of weightlessness, and then came back down.

Bezos made the trip with three people who decided they trusted him enough with their lives: his brother, Mark Bezos; Wally Funk, a storied aviator ; and Oliver Daemen, an 18-year-old fresh out of high school. Before today, Bezos’s private space company, Blue Origin, had not flown its rocket with any people on board. By going first, Bezos wanted to prove that his vehicle is safe, and that Blue Origin is finally ready to make its 11-minute suborbital trips an experience people can buy .

The journey was lightning-fast by spaceflight standards. The Blue Origin rocket rose into the sky with a rumble that echoed across the West Texas desert, and about 11 minutes later, it was all over—the passenger capsule parachuted down, and the Bezos brothers, Funk, and Daemen climbed out, grinning widely. The rocket was back on the launchpad, standing tall, after tearing through the atmosphere with a sonic boom. For this crew, Blue Origin had made spaceflight feel almost as smooth as same-day shipping.

The passengers flew on a rocket called New Shepard, named for the astronaut Alan Shepard, the first American to reach space. They followed a similar trajectory as Shepard did in 1961, but the Blue Origin experience is thoroughly, well, Amazon-like. Shepard, a military pilot, spent months preparing to fly his NASA capsule. Future Blue Origin customers need only show up a few days before launch for some light training on their fully autonomous ride.

Most people know Bezos primarily as the founder of Amazon—in the least flattering version, an ultra-wealthy boss who overworks his employees and hasn’t always paid his share of federal income taxes. But for Bezos, space came first. He remembers watching Apollo 11’s moon landing on his family’s television as a 5-year-old, and as a high-school valedictorian, he spoke about the importance of space travel. If Bezos were anyone else, the story of his spaceflight, of a dream fulfilled, would be simple and sweet.

But if Bezos were anyone else, he wouldn’t have been able to fulfill this dream at all. At a press conference after the launch, Bezos thanked Blue Origin's engineers, and then added, “I also want to thank every Amazon employee and every Amazon customer, ’cause you guys paid for all this.” Because of Amazon, he is the richest person on Earth , who controls the daily life of so many others here—not just his employees, but the hundreds of millions of us who partake, sometimes grudgingly, in the products he owns. Bezos benefits when we buy things (Amazon), eat (Whole Foods), read movie trivia (IMDb), rate books (Goodreads), manage our homes (Alexa), catch up on the news ( The Washington Post ), and go online (Amazon Web Services). We live in the world Bezos built. In that sense, as he floated over the Earth, taking in the beautiful view, he was surveying his kingdom, and adding one more dimension to his realm.

Richard Branson may have beaten Bezos to space, but Blue Origin is working on an even bigger rocket that could fly people and payloads well beyond the edge of space, into orbit around Earth. It’s also developing, with the help of a couple of longtime NASA contractors, technology to return American astronauts to the surface of the moon, by the 2024 deadline that Donald Trump set and that Joe Biden has so far kept . NASA originally chose Elon Musk’s SpaceX for this job, but while Musk joked about the situation—tweeting that Blue Origin “can’t get it up (to orbit) lol”—Bezos directed his staff to formally contest the space agency’s decision. SpaceX’s contract is now on hold .

For Bezos, today’s flight wasn’t just a joyride. The space billionaire still has more to prove. As a businessman, he already has a comfortable hold on the American way of life. As a spaceman, he wants a hold on its way of life among the stars.

The day before he flew to space, Bezos walked around his facility in the West Texas desert, dressed for the part of a cowboy . Big hat, shiny belt buckle, pointed boots—a very different man from tech-scion Bezos , in his puffer vest and aviator sunglasses. He remains buff, the result of an exercise regimen that, according to one of his friends, he took up several years ago so that he could be in good shape for spaceflight.

Bezos spent the summers of his childhood and early teenage years on his grandfather’s ranch in South Texas, fixing windmills, helping castrate cattle, and working his way through the science-fiction collection of the local library, as the journalist Christian Davenport recounts in The Space Barons , a book about Bezos and the other space billionaires. In college, Bezos was the president of a spaceflight club and attended lectures by Gerard O’Neill, the physicist who dreamed of space stations kept in perpetual motion to produce artificial gravity. “It’s always the science-fiction guys,” Bezos later said, according to Davenport. “They think of everything first, and then the builders come along and make it happen."

It helps, of course, when the builders are billionaires. Bezos founded Blue Origin—named for the pale blue dot where humankind arose—in 2000. He was already extraordinarily rich, and he had little trouble buying up land in West Texas to start developing rocket technology in secret. When the company successfully launched its New Shepard rocket for the first time, in 2015, it announced the news a day later, through a carefully curated press release. Bezos was not in a rush back then; Blue Origin’s mascot is a tortoise, and for years Bezos, who would devote one day of his workweek to Blue Origin, was content to move slowly and let the hare in the industry, Musk, run loose. Occasionally they tussled. After Blue Origin launched a rocket and then landed it upright—a historic first in the rocket business—Musk praised Bezos, but made sure to point out that Blue Origin had reached only the edge of space, not orbit . When SpaceX achieved the same feat with an orbital rocket a month later, Bezos playfully ignored the distinction, congratulating Musk with a “Welcome to the club!” Bezos remained unperturbed as Musk raced ahead—until this year, when that NASA moon contract swung out of reach, and something shifted.

Now Blue Origin has made an effort to draw people into Bezos’s space world. The day before the launch, the usually press-averse Bezos gave interviews to the major TV networks while dressed in his cobalt-blue flight suit, with his fellow passengers at his side. Hours before the flight, in the middle of the night, dozens of reporters gathered at the Van Horn Community Center to board shuttles to Blue Origin’s remote facility north of town. Signs of the space company’s presence are sprinkled around Van Horn—a banner stuck to the Cactus Cantina restaurant on the main drag, a mural of the Bezos brothers painted on the side of an abandoned storefront. The locals speak of the Blue Origin site as if it were a mystical place, shrouded in a force field few can penetrate. It is certainly no Cape Canaveral; a safety briefing for reporters warned of the myriad dangers of the remote site, from hazardous materials to wild hogs. As the press bus drove out of the community-center parking lot and into the darkness, I realized that I had flown nearly 2,000 miles and driven 115 miles to get here, but I had no idea where Blue Origin was taking me. It felt like being invited to a reclusive, eccentric person’s home for dinner, only the host was going to launch into space during the main course.

Bezos’s entire endeavor, historic as it might be, seems to some people like pure excess, the whim of a leader who has lost touch with the average person’s sense of the world. Even some of Blue Origin’s employees have had concerns; in April 2020, as the coronavirus swept across the United States, The Verge ’s Loren Grush reported that some workers felt that managers were pressuring them to keep up the pace, prioritizing the development of New Shepard over their health and safety.

As the day of Bezos’s flight drew closer, critics asked him to read the room , to pay more attention to Earth and spend money on problems closer to home. Bezos did—a bit, by billionaire standards— donating $19 million from Blue Origin’s coffers to space-related organizations, and $200 million of his own fortune to the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum. After his flight, Bezos announced more giveaways—$100 million each to the news anchor Van Jones and the chef José Andrés, who both run nonprofit organizations, to distribute to whatever charities they like.

The criticism of space travel as frivolous is as old as the act itself; in the golden age of NASA, the ire was directed at a government deemed neglectful of its constituents; in the gilded age of private space tourism, it is aimed at billionaires seen as frivolous. But paying attention to Earth and looking toward the stars are not contradictory acts, nor does one come at the detriment of the other. As Chanda Prescod-Weinstein, a theoretical physicist at the University of New Hampshire, recently wrote in a Washington Post op-ed, “We don’t actually face a choice between basic human needs and exciting journeys into the universe.” While NASA has some responsibility to get the public’s buy-in for its missions beyond Earth, the space billionaires don’t. They can try, as Bezos and Branson have done, but the sell is harder when part of their motivation is so obviously personal.

For Bezos in particular, selling the value of such a journey is a different challenge from any other he has attempted. People might not like how he runs Amazon, but they need toilet paper, or scissors, or a book, or some other mundane item that the company can provide, faster and with greater customer ease than anyone else. Amazon and Bezos’s other companies have population-size customer bases; Blue Origin, given the cost of a ticket—which remains under wraps, but is rumored to be several hundred thousand dollars—will have far fewer customers, at least in Bezos’s lifetime. No one needs to go to space right now.

But Bezos believes humankind will need to soon—not just the elites who can afford Blue Origin’s services, but all kinds of people. The space-nerd valedictorian told his classmates that people should move to space in order to preserve the Earth, and as an adult he still believes that . Of the space billionaires, Bezos is perhaps the most nostalgic. He has named his rockets after the spacefarers of NASA’s early years, and scheduled his spaceflight for the anniversary of the first moon landing. Bezos once organized a secret, expensive expedition to scour the seafloor off the coast of Florida in search of the discarded engines from the gargantuan rocket that lofted the Apollo 11 astronauts toward the moon. When the hardware was hauled onto the ship, Bezos was on deck, wiping the salty mud off the wreck like it was treasure.

Bezos has made himself a significant character in the story of American spaceflight, intertwining his achievements with those of spacefarers past. Bezos did today what someone else accomplished 60 years ago, but what he can do next, now that he’s back on Earth, sets his achievement apart. Given an opening for business, Bezos will exploit it to its most ambitious, sprawling end. There, at the edge of space, what possibilities did he see?

Jeff Bezos rides on company's 1st passenger flight to space and back

'best day ever,' bezos said after the capsule touched down on the desert floor.

Jeff Bezos makes historic spaceflight with all-civilian crew

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Jeff Bezos blasted into space Tuesday on his rocket company's first flight with people on board, becoming the second billionaire in just over a week to ride his own spacecraft.

The Amazon founder was accompanied by a hand-picked group: his brother, an 18-year-old from the Netherlands and an 82-year-old aviation pioneer from Texas — the youngest and oldest to ever fly in space.

"Best day ever!" Bezos said after the capsule touched down on the desert floor at the end of the 10-minute flight.

Named after America's first astronaut, Alan Shepard, the Blue Origin rocket soared from remote West Texas on the 52nd anniversary of the Apollo 11 moon landing, a date chosen by Bezos for its historical significance. He held fast to it, even as Virgin Galactic's Richard Branson pushed up his own flight from New Mexico in the race for space tourist dollars and beat him by nine days .

Unlike Branson's piloted rocket plane, Bezos's capsule was completely automated and required no official staff on board for the up-and-down flight.

Blue Origin reached an altitude of about 66 miles (106 kilometers), more than 10 miles (16 kilometers) higher than Branson's July 11 ride. The 60-foot (18-metre) booster accelerated to Mach 3 or three times the speed of sound to get the capsule high enough, before separating and landing upright.

During their several minutes of weightlessness, video from inside the capsule showed the four floating, doing somersaults, tossing Skittles candies and throwing balls. Cheering, whooping and exclamations of "wow" could be heard. The capsule landed under parachutes, with Bezos and his guests briefly experiencing nearly six times the force of gravity, or 6 Gs, on the way back.

WATCH | Blue Origin rocket passengers goof off in space:

Blue Origin rocket passengers goof off in space

Led by Bezos, they climbed out of the capsule after touchdown with wide grins, embracing parents, partners and children, then popped open bottles of sparkling wine, spraying one another.

"My expectations were high and they were dramatically exceeded," Bezos said later.

Their flight lasted 10 minutes and 10 seconds — five minutes shy of Alan Shepard's Freedom 7 flight in 1961 . Shepard's daughters, Laura and Julie, were introduced at a news conference a few hours later.

Sharing Bezos's dream-come-true adventure was Wally Funk, from the Dallas area, 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 it up there," Funk said after the flight.

"I want to go again — fast," she added.

Joining them on the ultimate joyride was the company's first paying customer, Oliver Daemen, a last-minute fill-in for the mystery winner of a $28 million US auction who opted for a later flight. The Dutch teen's father took part in the auction and agreed on a lower undisclosed price last week when Blue Origin offered his son the vacated seat.

Among the items brought on the flight: a pair of aviator Amelia Earhart's goggles and a piece of fabric from the original Wright Flyer.

"I got goosebumps," said Angel Herrera of El Paso, who watched the launch from inside Van Horn High School, about 40 kilometres away. "The hair on the back of my neck stood up, just witnessing history."

WATCH | A replay of the entire launch:

Billionaire Jeff Bezos blasts off on space travel company's first flight

How to get on the next two 2021 flights.

Blue Origin — founded by Bezos in 2000 in Kent, Wash., near Amazon's Seattle headquarters — has yet to open ticket sales to the public or reveal the price. For now, it's booking auction bidders. Two more passenger flights are planned by year's end, said Blue Origin CEO Bob Smith.

The recycled rocket and capsule that carried up Tuesday's passengers were used on the last two space demos, according to company officials.

• Dutch teenager is set to join billionaire Jeff Bezos in his first space tourism flight
• 'Waited a lifetime': Wally Funk will finally live out her space dreams, says friend

Virgin Galactic already has more than 600 reservations at $250,000 US apiece. Founded by Branson in 2004, the company has sent crew into space four times and plans two more test flights from New Mexico before launching customers next year.

Blue Origin's approach was slower and more deliberate. After 15 successful unoccupied test flights to space since 2015, Bezos finally declared it was time to put people on board. The Federal Aviation Administration agreed last week, approving the commercial space licence.

Remarkable passengers for a space flight

Bezos, 57, who also owns The Washington Post, claimed the first seat. The next went to his 50-year-old brother, Mark Bezos, an investor and volunteer firefighter, then Funk and Daemen. They spent two days together in training.

University of Chicago space historian Jordan Bimm said the passenger makeup is truly remarkable. Imagine if the head of NASA decided he wanted to launch in 1961 instead of Alan Shepard on the first U.S. spaceflight, he said in an email.

"That would have been unthinkable!" Bimm said. ""It shows just how much the idea of who and what space is for has changed in the last 60 years."

Bezos stepped down earlier this month as Amazon's CEO and just last week donated $200 million US to renovate the National Air and Space Museum. Most of the $28 million US from the auction has been distributed to space advocacy and education groups, with the rest benefiting Blue Origin's Club for the Future, its own education effort.

Fewer than 600 people have reached the edge of space or beyond. Until Tuesday, the youngest was 25-year-old Soviet cosmonaut Gherman Titov and the oldest at 77 was Mercury-turned-shuttle astronaut John Glenn.

• 3 billionaires' dreams of space tourism are more than flights of fancy, planetary experts say
• Q&A Did Richard Branson really make it to space? Technically, it depends who you ask

Both Bezos and Branson want to drastically increase those overall numbers, as does SpaceX's Elon Musk, who's skipping brief space hops and sending his private clients straight to orbit for tens of millions apiece, with the first flight coming up in September.

Despite appearances, Bezos and Branson insist they weren't trying to outdo each other by strapping in themselves. Bezos noted this week that only one person can lay claim to being first in space: Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin, who rocketed into orbit on April 12, 1961.

"This isn't a competition; this is about building a road to space so that future generations can do incredible things in space," he said on NBC's Today .

Blue Origin is working on a massive rocket, New Glenn, to put payloads and people into orbit from Cape Canaveral, Fla. The company also wants to put astronauts back on the moon with its proposed lunar lander Blue Moon; it's challenging NASA's sole contract award to SpaceX.

Included in the many people that Bezos thanked Tuesday was "every Amazon employee, and every Amazon customer. Because you guys paid for all this." Bezos has said he finances the rocket company by selling $1 billion in Amazon stock each year.

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• Analysis Jeff Bezos ready to take rocket ride, a small step toward his fantastical space vision
• 'It was just magical': Billionaire Richard Branson flies to space aboard his own ship
• Listen The billionaire space race is on (but not everyone's on board)
• Did Richard Branson really make it to space? Technically, it depends who you ask

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Jeff Bezos and Crew Land Safely After 10-Minute Trip to Space

"Blue Control, Bezos. Best. Day. Ever!"

Amazon billionaire Jeff Bezos landed safely in the West Texas desert Tuesday morning after a successful 10-minute mission to space aboard his company Blue Origin's first human flight.

Bezos was joined by his brother Mark, 82-year-old Wally Funk, the oldest person in space, and 18-year-old Oliver Daemon, the youngest person in space and Blue Origin's first official customer.

The New Shepard rocket took off from Blue Origin's spaceport in West Texas at 9:12 a.m. ET. It reached a height of 351,210 feet (about 66.5 miles) and speeds of more than Mach 3 before floating back down to Earth.

"Blue Control, Bezos. Best. Day. Ever!" Bezos reported as his status check upon landing.

The entire mission lasted about 10 minutes and 20 seconds from takeoff to landing.

The rocket passed the Kármán Line, the internationally recognized line that demarcates space, and the astronauts spent about four minutes experiencing weightlessness. As the astronauts floated around the cabin and took in the views, audio of their excitement came back down to Earth.

"I was surprised by how easy zero-g was. It was natural," Bezos said as the rocket landed.

"Like swimming," Mark added.

After the booster detached, the capsule floated back down to Earth for about 90 seconds at a speed of about 15 miles per hour, with a combination of parachutes and jets for a soft touch-down.

After opening the rocket and hugging their friends and family, the crew popped bottles of champagne near the capsule.

"We're so grateful to everyone who made this possible," Bezos said as the capsule landed. New Shepard had undergone 15 successful test flights over the past few years before this first human launch.

Blue Origin will take off at least twice more this year, with more missions scheduled for 2022. Those interested in joining future missions are encouraged to contact the company for more information about tickets.

Earlier this month, Richard Branson became the first billionaire in space when his Virgin Galactic flight took off on a successful test flight. Blue Origin's journey differs slightly from Virgin Galactic's. It travels to an altitude of about 66 miles, about 10 miles higher than Virgin's flight path, and is completed on a fully automated capsule with no need for trained staff aboard. Virgin Galactic requires two pilots on each flight.

Cailey Rizzo is a contributing writer for Travel + Leisure, currently based in Brooklyn. You can find her on Twitter, Instagram , or at caileyrizzo.com .

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Jeff Bezos owns a $10 million Swiss private jet. See inside the Pilatus PC-24 with its unusual toilet in the galley.

• Jeff Bezos owns three private jets worth $140 million in total, per JetSpy data.
• That includes a Pilatus PC-24, which the Swiss company calls "the world's only super versatile jet."
• It can seat up to 10 people and uniquely has a toilet in the galley to save space.

Just like Elon Musk and Bill Gates, Jeff Bezos ' private jet of choice is a Gulfstream G650ER . In fact, he owns two of them.

But the Amazon founder also has a smaller business jet known for its versatility, according to data from JetSpy.

Swiss planemaker Pilatus bills its PC-24 as "the world's only super versatile jet" because it's capable of landing on short and unpaved runways.

Business Insider saw inside a PC-24 on display in Geneva at EBACE, Europe's largest business aviation conference. The model we visited is slightly newer than Bezos', built in 2023, compared to the Amazon founder's 2020 jet.

Jeff Bezos owns three private jets worth around $140 million, according to data from JetSpy.

Jeff Bezos' 3 private jets are worth $140 million and include 2 Gulfstream G650ERs alongside a hangar in Seattle

The majority of that figure is owed to two Gulfstream G650ERs. But the Amazon founder also owns a smaller jet made by a Swiss company: the PC-24 from Pilatus.

I toured a $65 million Gulfstream G650ER private jet like the ones owned by billionaires like Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos and saw how the ultra-rich travel

A PC-24, worth around $10 million, was on display in May at EBACE, a business aviation conference in Geneva.

This jet is the first of the updated model that Pilatus announced last October. On the tail, its livery features the Alps' famous Matterhorn.

It has a maximum cruise speed of 506 miles-per-hour, but Pilatus bills it as "the world's only super versatile jet" because it can land on shorter and non-paved runways.

Compared to one of Gulfstream's large business jet, it looks tiny — but the two are designed for completely different journeys.

In the background of this image is a Gulfstream G700 which is only slightly bigger than the G650ER. It's almost twice as long as the PC-24 and is capable of flying for more than 10 hours straight.

With a range of around 2,200 miles, the PC-24 would need a fuel stop to travel between Bezos' Miami home and Amazon's Seattle HQ.

Boarding the plane, most people have to duck to fit into the cabin that's 5 feet and 1 inch high..

The first thing you see is the compact galley ...

... which has a sink and a cupboard for champagne glasses ...

... and space for a coffee machine or another appliance.

The only sign of the most unique feature is this toilet button.

Below the sink, you can pull a handle to reveal the toilet: a unique layout that saves space.

Just a curtain separates it from the cockpit, where only one pilot is needed to operate the jet. At least there's a door to the cabin on the other side for privacy.

Bathrooms are usually at the aft of a jet, but on the PC-24 you'll find a curtain ...

... which allows for convenient inflight access to the hold, which has a cargo capacity of 3,100 lbs.

This cabin has seats for eight passengers, but the PC-24 can alternatively be configured for up to 10 people.

The seats can swivel round 180 degrees ...

... and also lie flat — an uncommon feature on jets designed for shorter distances.

7 airlines around the world offer lie-flat beds in economy — see what makes this seating arrangement so rare

Along the ceiling are the lights and air vents, with neat little seatbelt signs.

This PC-24 also had a divan that can be made up into a bed.

Bezos' PC-24 was built in 2020 — before Pilatus added the divan as an option.

Its armrests also come with holders for two drinks.

Behind the rear seat there's more storage space.

And underneath the windows are pop-out tables for each seat.

For a man with as much money as Bezos — the world's second richest person — it's interesting that he would own this small jet as well as his large ones.

So it's likely that he was keen on the PC-24's main selling points: the only business jet capable of landing on unpaved runways as short as 3,090 feet while loaded to its maximum capacity, plus its unique space-saving designs.

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New research explores how a short trip to space affects the human body

New research shows space tourists experience some of the same body changes as astronauts who spend months in orbit. NASA and other organizations have long studied the toll of space travel on astronauts, but there’s been less attention on space tourists.

FILE - Jared Isaacman, left, and Hayley Arceneaux prepare to head to launchpad 39A for a launch on a SpaceX Falcon 9 at the Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Fla., Wednesday Sept. 15, 2021. New research presents the largest set of information yet regarding how the human body reacts to spaceflight. (AP Photo/John Raoux, File)

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FILE - A SpaceX Falcon 9 lifts off with four private citizens from pad 39A at the Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Fla., Wednesday Sept. 15, 2021. New research presents the largest set of information yet regarding how the human body reacts to spaceflight. (AP Photo/John Raoux, File)

FILE - Inspiration4 crew member Jared Isaacman, right, waves to family members before a trip to Kennedy Space Center’s Launch Pad 39-A and a planned liftoff on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket, Sept. 15, 2021, in Cape Canaveral, Fla. New research presents the largest set of information yet regarding how the human body reacts to spaceflight. (AP Photo/John Raoux, File)

FILE - A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket, with four private citizens onboard, lifts off in this time-exposure photo from Kennedy Space Center’s Launch Pad 39-A, Wednesday, Sept. 15, 2021, in Cape Canaveral, Fla. New research presents the largest set of information yet regarding how the human body reacts to spaceflight. (AP Photo/John Raoux, File)

FILE - A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket, with four private citizens onboard, lifts off from Kennedy Space Center’s Launch Pad 39-A Wednesday, Sept. 15, 2021, in Cape Canaveral , Fla. New research presents the largest set of information yet regarding how the human body reacts to spaceflight. (AP Photo/Chris O’Meara, File)

FILE - Sian Proctor, right, talks to a friend from a car window before a trip to Kennedy Space Center’s Launch Pad 39-A and a planned liftoff on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket Wednesday, Sept. 15, 2021, in Cape Canaveral, Fla. New research presents the largest set of information yet regarding how the human body reacts to spaceflight. (AP Photo/John Raoux, File)

DALLAS (AP) — Space tourists experience some of the same body changes as astronauts who spend months in orbit, according to new studies published Tuesday.

Those shifts mostly returned to normal once the amateurs returned to Earth, researchers reported.

Research on four space tourists is included in a series of studies on the health effects of space travel, down to the molecular level. The findings paint a clearer picture of how people — who don’t undergo years of astronaut training — adapt to weightlessness and space radiation, the researchers said.

“This will allow us to be better prepared when we’re sending humans into space for whatever reason,” said Allen Liu, a mechanical engineering professor at the University of Michigan who was not involved with the research.

NASA and others have long studied the toll of space travel on astronauts, including yearlong residents of the International Space Station , but there’s been less attention on space tourists. The first tourist visit to the space station was in 2001, and opportunities for private space travel have expanded in recent years.

A three-day chartered flight in 2021 gave researchers the chance to examine how quickly the body reacts and adapts to spaceflight, said Susan Bailey, a radiation expert at Colorado State University who took part in the research.

While in space, the four passengers on the SpaceX flight, dubbed Inspiration4, collected samples of blood, saliva, skin and more. Researchers analyzed the samples and found wide-ranging shifts in cells and changes to the immune system. Most of these shifts stabilized in the months after the four returned home, and the researchers found that the short-term spaceflight didn’t pose significant health risks.

“This is the first time we’ve had a cell-by-cell examination of a crew when they go to space,” said researcher and co-author Chris Mason with Weill Cornell Medicine.

The papers, which were published Tuesday in Nature journals and are now part of a database, include the impact of spaceflight on the skin, kidneys and immune system. The results could help researchers find ways to counteract the negative effects of space travel, said Afshin Beheshti, a researcher with the Blue Marble Space Institute of Science who took part in the work.

AP videojournalist Mary Conlon contributed from New York.

The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Science and Educational Media Group. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

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NASA Picks Blue Origin’s Blue Moon Lander for Artemis V Mission

After losing out to SpaceX, Jeff Bezos’ rocket company will get a chance to carry astronauts to the moon’s surface on a mission scheduled for 2029.

By Kenneth Chang

On their second try, Jeff Bezos and his rocket company have won a contract to take NASA astronauts to the moon.

NASA announced on Friday that it had awarded a contract to Mr. Bezos’ company, Blue Origin, to provide a lunar lander for a moon mission that is scheduled to launch in 2029. NASA agreed to pay $3.4 billion for the 50-foot-tall spacecraft, which is named Blue Moon and can transport four astronauts to the moon’s surface.

The mission, Artemis V, is another critical piece of NASA’s Artemis program to send astronauts back to the moon as part of an effort to explore its south pole region. Astronauts are to land on the moon in a vehicle built by SpaceX for the Artemis III and IV missions.

John Couluris, Blue Origin’s vice president for lunar transportation, said that the company was contributing “well north” of the price of the NASA contract amount to the development effort and that it, not NASA, would absorb any cost overruns. In the past, some members of Congress have complained about providing taxpayer money to Blue Origin, given Mr. Bezos’ wealth.

”We want more competition,” Bill Nelson, the administrator of NASA, said during the announcement on Friday at NASA’s headquarters in Washington. “It means that you have reliability. You have backups.”

Lisa Watson-Morgan, the manager for the human landing system program at NASA, said the second lander “also helps us with a more diversified industrial base, and that will help us advance innovation in the future.”

The winning of the contract could start a promising rebound year for Blue Origin after a number of delays and setbacks — including the failure of one of its New Shepard vehicles , which travel to space but not to orbit, during a launch last September that carried experiments but no passengers. Blue Origin has identified the cause and hopes to resume New Shepard flights involving both space tourists and scientific cargo later this year.

And some hardware manufactured by Blue Origin might finally be used on an orbital mission in the coming months. The company built engines for the booster stage of the Vulcan rocket being developed by the United Launch Alliance, a joint venture of the aerospace giants Boeing and Lockheed Martin.

Blue Origin might also provide some public glimpses of New Glenn, a much larger rocket that is to launch payloads to orbit.

For the lunar lander contract, Blue Origin, in collaboration with other aerospace companies such as Boeing and Lockheed Martin, beat a second team led by Dynetics, a defense company based in Huntsville, Ala.

“The feeling is absolutely fantastic,” Mr. Couluris said. “This is Step 1, though. We have a lot to do before we successfully land and return astronauts.”

The Blue Moon lander is designed to fit within the 23-foot-wide diameter of Blue Origin’s New Glenn rocket, and will weigh more than 45 metric tons when filled with propellants.

For Artemis V, the lander will first dock at Gateway, a small outpost in orbit around the moon. Four astronauts will travel to Gateway in another spacecraft, NASA’s Orion capsule. Then they will transfer to the Blue Moon lander for a stay near the lunar south pole lasting about a week.

After their visit to the moon, the lander will blast off and return to Gateway, and the Orion capsule will take all four astronauts back to Earth. The same lander could be used for several missions.

A second Blue Origin spacecraft will be needed to transport liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen from Earth to lunar orbit to refill the propellant tanks of the Blue Moon. Transfer of propellants in the near-weightless environment of space, especially ultracold liquid hydrogen, is tricky and has not yet been demonstrated on a large scale.

Mr. Couluris said Blue Origin would conduct an uncrewed demonstration flight of the lander in 2028, a year before it is to be used for astronauts.

“We fully expect to meet the NASA schedule,” Mr. Couluris said.

Mr. Couluris said the lunar lander could also be configured to carry 30 metric tons of cargo instead of passengers, “to form the foundation of habitats and other permanent infrastructure” on the moon’s surface.

The Artemis V mission was the second bid by Mr. Bezos’ company to land on the moon. In 2021, Blue Origin and Dynetics were disappointed when NASA awarded SpaceX a fixed $2.9 billion contract to build a variation of its giant Starship vehicle that would land astronauts on the moon for the first time in more than half a century .

The two companies protested the decision, especially because NASA officials originally aimed to award two contracts.

That would have paralleled successful efforts by NASA that turned over to private companies the transportation of cargo and crew to the International Space Station. But NASA officials said at the time that there was not enough money in their budget for a second lander. SpaceX’s $2.9 billion bid was the lowest bid by far. Blue Origin’s proposed design had a price tag of $6 billion, and the one offered by Dynetics was even more expensive.

The federal Government Accountability Office rejected the protests of the two companies. Blue Origin then sued in federal court and again lost .

Last September, after winning a larger budget from Congress, NASA announced a competition for a second lunar lander. Dynetics and Blue Origin decided to compete again, though there was some shuffling of the companies participating in the efforts. Northrop Grumman, which was part of Blue Origin’s original proposal, switched to the Dynetics team.

Blue Origin added to its team Boeing; Astrobotic, a small Pittsburgh company that is developing robotic lunar landers; and Honeybee Robotics, a space technology company that Blue Origin bought last year.

The design of the spacecraft also changed, adding in-space propellant transfer.

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But it will not reach the moon for a while.

SpaceX’s initial $2.9 billion contract was to provide the lander for the first moon landing during Artemis III, which is currently scheduled for late 2025 but is likely to slip to 2026 or later. In November, NASA exercised a $1.15 billion option in that contract for SpaceX to provide a lander for Artemis IV as well, a mission that is scheduled for 2028.

After Artemis V, NASA will be able to choose between the SpaceX and Blue Origin designs for later missions.

Eventually, companies and people outside of NASA could also buy Blue Moon rides. “We do have a number of entities that are interested,” Mr. Couluris said.

Kenneth Chang has been at The Times since 2000, writing about physics, geology, chemistry, and the planets. Before becoming a science writer, he was a graduate student whose research involved the control of chaos. More about Kenneth Chang

What’s Up in Space and Astronomy

Keep track of things going on in our solar system and all around the universe..

Never miss an eclipse, a meteor shower, a rocket launch or any other 2024 event  that’s out of this world with  our space and astronomy calendar .

The company SpaceX achieved a key set of ambitious goals  on the fourth test flight of a vehicle that is central to Elon Musk’s vision of sending people to Mars.

Euclid, a European Space Agency telescope launched into space last summer, finally showed off what it’s capable of with a batch of breathtaking images  and early science results.

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Scientists probe a space mystery: Why do people age faster during space travel?

Research finds bodies in space were stressed and showed dramatic signs of aging during the journey. but 95% of the indicators studied returned to normal within a few months..

Humanity's future may involve getting to a planet other than Earth ‒ but first people will have to survive the journey. That's why in a new series of papers scientists explore the impact of space travel on the human body from skin to kidneys to immune cells to genes.

Four civilian astronauts allowed themselves to be researched from top to bottom as they circled in low-Earth orbit for three days aboard the 2021 SpaceX Inspiration4 mission and then returned to their normal lives.

One of the most important observations was that although their bodies were stressed and showed dramatic signs of aging during the journey, 95% of the indicators studied returned to normal within a few months.

Radiation exposure apparently causes the acceleration of disease and damages cells "even in three to five days," Susan Bailey, a co-author on many of the studies and a radiation cancer biologist at Colorado State University in Fort Collins, said in a Monday video call with reporters.

Space news: Starship splashes down for first time in 4th test

Bailey and other scientists have studied astronauts before, most famously, identical twins Scott and Mark Kelly, during and after most of the 520 days Scott spent in space. ( Mark is now a senator from Arizona , choosing to run for political office after his wife, Congresswoman Gabby Giffords , now a gun control advocate , was shot in the head by a constituent.)

But this collection of studies, published Tuesday in Nature and related journals , shows the impact of space travel both on more people and also on a more diverse group, not just the exclusive people who can pass NASA's rigorous selection process.

Hayley Arceneaux , for instance, a physician assistant who served as the mission's medical director, was treated for cancer at age 10 and was one of the rare women in space. At 29, Arceneaux was also the youngest-ever space traveler.

Each of the four members of Inspiration4 represented a different decade of life, and began to provide the kind of diversity that will be crucial to understanding how space travel may impact people of different ages and health status and with different lived experiences, the researchers said.

"It really provides the foundation as we think ahead and more futuristically," Bailey said. The papers, she said, encouraged her and her peers to "think a little bit more about what it's really going to take for people to live in space for long periods of time, to thrive, to reproduce. How is all of that really going to happen?"

Bailey spent months studying the biology of the space travelers. But Monday's video conference was the first time she'd seen them face-to-face. "I'm familiar with your DNA," she told Arceneaux and fellow space traveler Chris Sembroski. "But it's nice to meet you."

Better understanding the damage that accumulates and how the body adapts to space travel will also lead researchers to treatments and fixes, said Bailey and the two other co-authors on the call, Christopher Mason, professor of genomics, physiology, and biophysics at Weill Cornell Medicine in New York, and Afshin Beheshti, an expert in bioinformatics at Blue Marble Space Institute of Science in Seattle.

In addition to age-related diseases, the papers revealed other problems space travelers can develop, like kidney stones. "Here we can treat that, but a kidney stone halfway to Mars, how are you going to treat that?" Beheshti wondered aloud. "That wasn't on the radar before" these papers.

"As we start to unravel some of this," Bailey added, "we'll improve not only our ability to deal with radiation exposure but also be addressing some of these age-related pathologies like cardiovascular disease that certainly could influence astronauts' performance en route to Mars."

Another insight: Women seem to recover faster from space damage than men, though Mason cautioned that more women need to be studied to better understand the effect and that faster recovery could come at the expense of higher long-term risk of breast and lung cancer from extended radiation exposure.

The lessons learned from space travelers could help folks on Earth, too, the researchers said.

Learning how to keep cells safe from radiation, for instance, might be transferable to help minimize damage to cancer patients undergoing radiation treatments, Mason said.

New protection measures could also be useful for people exposed to radiation at work or in case of a nuclear reactor disaster like the meltdown at the Fukushima Daiichi power plant in Japan after the 2011 earthquake there.

Because space travel speeds up aging, learning how to reverse or slow that process could help "extend health-span for us mere earthlings as well," Bailey said. The new skin study, for example, suggests approaches that might be used to help people keep their skin looking younger longer.

"There's all kinds of things that could potentially benefit people on Earth," she said.

The Inspiration4 mission, which raised $250 million for St. Jude Children's Research Hospital in Memphis , Tennessee, also relied on some experimental technologies for recording medical information, including a handheld ultrasound imaging device, smartwatch wearables, a measurement device to check for eye alignment and new methods for profiling the immune system as well as other cells and molecules.

These devices and approaches could be useful for Earth-bound settings that are far from major urban medical centers, Mason said.

Relying on civilians rather than NASA astronauts also made it easier to study the space travelers, who signed waivers and aren't subject to government regulations, he said. Their data will be made available to other researchers.

Both Arceneaux and Sembroski, a data engineer who works for the space technologies company Blue Origin, said they loved their spaceflight and would do it again in a second if given the chance. But they also hope many others are given the same opportunity.

"We're not going to see the civilization in space that we want without people being willing to share that experience," Sembroski said about sharing his data for research. "It was fun to be part of this."

"Our mission had, not only a lot of heart behind it," Arceneaux added, "but we really wanted to make a scientific impact."

Arceneaux said she doesn't mind the mark left by the biopsy used to study how her skin reacted to space travel. "I love my space scar!" she said.

"Better than a tattoo," Bailey responded.

The best news from the research on both Kelly and the Inspiration4 travelers, Mason said, is that there's "no show-stopper. There's no reason we shouldn't be able to get to Mars and back."

Radiation exposure probably means people shouldn't be taking multiple trips to and from the red planet, he said. But "so far, from all we've observed, the body is successfully adapting to the space environment."

Karen Weintraub can be reached at [email protected].

Fact Check: NASA did not abruptly stop deep-sea research

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William Shatner experienced profound grief in space. It was the 'overview effect'

Enrique Rivera

Star Trek actor William Shatner flew into space on October 13, 2021. Mario Tama/Getty Images hide caption

Star Trek actor William Shatner flew into space on October 13, 2021.

William Shatner is probably the most famous astronaut in the world. But of course, he's not an astronaut. He's an actor. The 91-year-old Canadian has been an icon since he played Captain Kirk in the original Star Trek series, which debuted in 1966.

But Captain Kirk, er, William Shatner, did actually go to space — last year, aboard a capsule piloted by Jeff Bezos's company Blue Origin. Shatner details his experiences in his new memoir Boldly Go .

"I was crying," Shatner told NPR. "I didn't know what I was crying about. I had to go off some place and sit down and think, what's the matter with me? And I realized I was in grief."

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While he wasn't sure what to expect, Shatner did not predict this . He had been excited to travel to space, and had thought about it for nearly 60 years, but didn't think he'd be overwhelmed with sadness, or that he'd go through "the strongest feelings of grief" that he's ever experienced.

There's a name for what Shatner felt: it's called the "overview effect." The term was coined by space philosopher Frank White in his 1987 book of the same name.

"The overview effect is a cognitive and emotional shift in a person's awareness, their consciousness and their identity when they see the Earth from space," White told NPR. "They're at a distance and they're seeing the Earth ... in the context of the universe."

The overview effect is known to affect astronauts. NASA/Getty Images hide caption

The overview effect is known to affect astronauts.

This context was what struck Shatner the most.

"It was the death that I saw in space and the lifeforce that I saw coming from the planet — the blue, the beige and the white," he said. "And I realized one was death and the other was life."

According to White, everyone who travels to space experiences an "overview effect" — an emotional or mental reaction strong enough to disrupt that person's previous assumptions about humanity, Earth, and/or the cosmos. Everyone's overview effect is unique to them, but there are reactions that are more common than others.

White has interviewed more than 40 astronauts, and says that Shatner's response is typical. "People often cry when they first see the Earth from space," he said.

"I wept for the Earth because I realized it's dying," Shatner said. "I dedicated my book, Boldly Go , to my great-grandchild, who's three now — coming three — and in the dedication, say it's them, those youngsters, who are going to reap what we have sown in terms of the destruction of the Earth."

Astronauts often return with a greater distaste for war

After traveling to space, astronauts gain a greater understanding of how precious, and delicate, the Earth is. Many astronauts report that they were aware of climate change and global warming, but they became much more sensitive to the subject after traveling to space.

White said that one astronaut told him that the biggest lesson they learned from space travel was "the difference between intellectual knowledge and experiential knowledge."

"I saw more clearly than I have, with all the studying and reading I've done, the writhing, slow death of Earth and we on it," Shatner said.

"It's a little tiny rock with an onion skin air around it. That's how fragile it all is. It's so fragile. We hang by a thread ... we're just dangling."

The New Shepard rocket launched on October 13, 2021 with Shatner on board. Patrick T. Fallon/AFP via Getty Images hide caption

The New Shepard rocket launched on October 13, 2021 with Shatner on board.

Although we are just dangling, Shatner adds that we're dangling together.

"We're entangled with each other," he said, decrying conflicts between human beings. "We have a war ... the stupidity of it all is so obvious."

Like Shatner, astronauts often return from space more convinced of the interconnectedness of humanity. According to White, space travelers return to our planet with "a greater distaste for war and violence, and a desire to do something to improve life back on the surface, because they've seen the truth of our situation."

And although the truth may not be pretty, a more universal perspective can only aid in reconnecting our long disconnected species. White says that astronauts return more eager than ever to be part of the solution, so that humanity may, one day, live long and prosper.