Historic moment: Jeff Bezos, the richest man on the planet, will launch his rocket into space today



[ad_1]

Direct “Blue origin” Watch the flight broadcast at the end of the article.

Blue Origin is planning its first manned mission, an 11-minute flight from West Texas past the Karman line. The flight must coincide with the 52nd anniversary of the first landing on the Moon.

Virgin Galactic founder Richard Branson embarked on a similar journey on July 11, beating the Amazon mogul in the multi-million dollar race.

But Bezos, like Branson, claims there was no competition.

“There is a person who was the first man in space, his name is Yuri Gagarin, and it happened a long time ago,” the Amazon founder told US television NBC on Monday, referring to the Soviet astronaut’s achievement in 1961.

“It is not a party; it is the construction of a path into space so that future generations can do incredible things in space,” added the businessman.

The richest man in the world, Jeff Bezos, will fly into space with the team.

The richest man in the world, Jeff Bezos, will fly into space with the team.

Furthermore, Blue Origin’s goals are much broader: both in terms of how high its reusable New Shepard spacecraft will rise compared to the Virgin spacecraft, and in terms of the ambitions set.

Bezos, 57, founded Blue Origin in 2000 with the goal of one day building floating space colonies with artificial gravity that would employ and live with millions of people.

Today, the company is developing a New Glenn heavy-duty orbital rocket and a moonlight that the company hopes to lease from NASA.

The New Shepard has been tested in 15 unmanned flights to make sure the tiers separate smoothly and the safety mechanisms are reliable. During those flights, among other things, the capsule was rejected beyond the takeoff run if the rocket exploded. The spacecraft was also landed using not all parachutes.

“We figured out how to make the vehicle safe enough to be ready to plant our loved ones in it and send them into space,” said Bob Smith, CEO of Blue Origin, at a news conference Sunday.

The spacecraft lifted off at 8 p.m. locations (4 p.m. Lithuanian time) from the remote cosmodrome of Launch Site One in the West Texas desert. The nearest town, Van Horn, is 40 km to the north.

The richest man in the world, Jeff Bezos, will fly into space with the team.

The richest man in the world, Jeff Bezos, will fly into space with the team.

Weather conditions look favorable at the moment and the event will be streamed live on BlueOrigin.com. The broadcast will begin 90 minutes before the start.

The richest, the oldest, the youngest

Bezos will be joined by 82-year-old record holder Wally Funk, as well as 18-year-old Oliver Daeman.

Daemen and Funk will be the youngest and oldest astronauts to travel into space.

The last of the four crew members is Bezos’ younger brother and best friend, Mark, who runs the Bezos family foundation and works as a volunteer firefighter.

However, the anonymous winner of the auction, who agreed to pay 28 million euros, will not participate in the flight due to “incompatible schedules”. USD (24 million euros) for space on the spacecraft. This person must travel to space during the next Blue Origin flight.

Daemen’s father, the CEO of a private equity firm, came in second in the auction, giving his son a chance to become Blue Origin’s first paying customer.

After launch, New Shepard will fly into space at more than 3,700 km per hour. velocity. The spacecraft will be powered by a liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen engine, the only by-product of which is steam.

The capsule detaches from the launcher, and when it is high enough, the astronauts unbuckle their seat belts and lose weight for 3-4 minutes.

The spacecraft will reach a maximum altitude of 106 km, so the crew members will be able to admire the curvature of the planet as well as the blackness of the rest of the universe.

The launch vehicle automatically returns to the landing site just north of the takeoff point, and the capsule falls freely to the ground using three huge parachutes and then a propeller to gently land in the desert.

The richest man in the world, Jeff Bezos, will fly into space with the team.

The richest man in the world, Jeff Bezos, will fly into space with the team.

Funk, who distinguished himself during the Mercury 13 project in the 1970s to prepare women for spaceflight but missed the opportunity due to the prevalence of sexism in the early space age, said he plans to make the most of the current opportunity. .

Speaking to television on NBC, she said she was particularly interested in experiencing a state of near total weightlessness.

“Rate your mood”

Blue Origin is reluctant to reveal all its future plans.

The company says it plans to fly two more flights this year and “a lot more” next year.

According to analysts, much will depend on the success and safety guarantees of the first flights.

Blue Origin boss Smith Smith revealed on Sunday that the next launch could take place in September or October. According to him, the “willingness to pay of potential customers is still quite high.”

At the same time, the sector begins to receive criticism from the wealthy who fly into space while the rest of the Earth’s population faces the catastrophic consequences of climate change and the coronavirus pandemic.

“Could it be a less appropriate time for extremely wealthy missile owners to embark on a rapid journey into darkness?”

It is not allowed to publish, quote or reproduce the information of the BNS news agency in the media and on websites without the written consent of the UAB “BNS”.



[ad_2]