Washington: The wealthiest man on the planet Jeff Bezos spent a few minutes in space Tuesday on Blue Origin's first human mission, a key moment for a fledgling industry seeking to make the final frontier accessible to elite tourists. "A very happy group of people in this capsule," said Bezos after the spaceship touched down in the west Texas desert following an 10-minute hop to the Karman line and back.
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The four-member crew exchanged high-fives and hugged family who came to meet them at the landing site. Earlier, the New Shepard capsule reached at an altitude of 66.5 miles (107 kilometers), allowing the passengers to experience weightlessness while admiring the curve of the Earth.
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New Shepard craft capsule after it returned from space. | Virgin Galactic founder Richard Branson made the voyage on July 11, narrowly beating the Amazon magnate in their battle of the billionaires. But Blue Origin's sights were set higher: both in the altitude to which its reusable New Shepard craft would ascend compared to Virgin's spaceplane, and in its ambitions.
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Bezos, 57, founded Blue Origin in 2000 with the goal of one day building floating space colonies with artificial gravity where millions of people will work and live.
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New Shepard crew capsule descends on the end of its parachute system. | Today, the company is developing a heavy-lift orbital rocket called New Glenn and also a Moon lander it is hoping to contract to NASA. Named after Alan Shepard, the first American in space, the New Shepard suborbital rocket had flown 15 uncrewed flights to put it through its paces and test safety mechanisms.
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Blue Origin's New Shepard rocket lands. | Lift-off was slightly delayed and came at 1312 GMT from a remote facility in the west Texas desert called Launch Site One, some 25 miles (40 kilometers) north of the nearest town, Van Horn. "This might have looked easy today, it was anything but easy," said Gary Lai, lead designer of New Shepard.
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The view from the New Shepard rocket . | Daemen's father, the CEO of a private equity firm, was a runner-up in the bidding, allowing his teenage son to become the company's first paying customer.
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After lift-off, New Shepard careened towards space at speeds exceeding 2,300 mph (3700 kph) using a liquid hydrogen-liquid oxygen engine whose only byproduct is water vapor.
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The capsule separated from its booster, and when it got high enough, the astronauts unbuckled and experienced space for three to four minutes.
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The booster returned autonomously to a landing pad just north of its launch site, while the capsule fell back to Earth with three giant parachutes, and finally a thruster, for a gentle landing.
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Blue Origin's New Shepard rocket launches.
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Bezos rings a bell before boarding ahead of his scheduled flight.
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Mark Bezos, Jeff Bezos, Wally Funk and Oliver Daemen as they travel to the launch pad.
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From left to right: Mark Bezos, brother of Jeff Bezos; Jeff Bezos, founder of Amazon and space tourism company Blue Origin; Oliver Daemen, of the Netherlands; and Wally Funk, aviation pioneer from Texas
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