On July 20, Jeff Bezos’s Blue Origin will launch its first suborbital flight with humans on board. What’s unexpected, however, is that Bezos will be one of the passengers on that inaugural flight. The Amazon founder and CEO announced the news today in a short video posted to his Instagram account.
In addition to Bezos being a passenger on his company’s reusable New Shepard rocket, he’ll also be joined by his brother on the flight. It’s been known that Blue Origin’s first spaceflight would feature human passengers—including a seat being auctioned off to the highest bidder—for some time. But the fact that the flight will carry the world’s richest man and the owner of Blue Origin . . . we’ll, it shows you just how much faith Bezos has in his spaceflight company.
Of course, while Bezos feels secure enough to bring himself and his brother along for the ride, we think Bezos’s insurers are probably going to be sweating bullets during the flight. It should be noted that when Bezos makes the flight, he will no longer be CEO of Amazon. He steps down from his longtime role at the company on July 5. And one more thing: If you want to be part of the historic flight, you still have your chance. Bidding for the auctioned seat is still going on and currently sits at $2.8 million.
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