The US Federal Aviation Administration has approved Blue Origin’s license to send founder Jeff Bezos and three passengers — including his brother and a lucky bigger who paid $US28 million for a seat — to the edge of space next week. And let me tell you, it has been a big week for sending billionaires further away from Earth than ever before.
Blue Origin’s suborbital license to fly humans was approved by the FAA on Monday night, and is valid until August, giving a small window of time for Bezos to live out his astronaut dreams.
“New Shepard is go for launch,” Blue Origin said in a statement on Monday just prior to the license being approved.
Bezos and his passengers will take off on Tuesday, marking the company’s first launch of humans into sub-orbit. However, Bezos isn’t even the first billionaire to be sent to the edge of space after Virgin founder Richard Branson made history earlier this month.
It’s 2021 and space has quite literally become a billionaire’s dick swinging contest.
The four passengers will fly on Blue Origin’s New Shepard rocket, a massive six story-tall rocket that will send the smaller crew capsule to the edge of space.
Whether or not it actually counts as space has been heavily debated — much like with Richard Branson — with only some countries counting 62 miles high as being technically “space”.
Regardless, it’s a once in a lifetime trip.
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How To Watch Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin Flight In Australia
New Shepard is set to lift off on July 20, 2021 at 9am EDT, weather and technical factors permitting. The date is significant as it’s the anniversary of the first time humans stepped foot on the moon in 1969.
The flight is expected to last approximately 11 minutes.
The whole event will be broadcast live on both the Blue Origin and Space.com websites, where it will be free to watch. You can also keep up to date with what’s happening on the Blue Origin Twitter page.
Blue Origin’s pre-lift off broadcast will begin at 7.30am local time, but thankfully, Australians won’t have to get up early to tune in.
Broadcast Starts: 9:30pm AEST
Lift Off: 11pm AEST