Billionaire Jeff Bezos will now blast into space on Tuesday in the first crewed flights of his rocket ship. It has the name of the New Shepard. He will get the accompaniment of Mark Bezos, his brother. Also, he will get the company of Wally Funk, an 82-year-old pioneer in the space race and an 18-year-old teenager.
They will travel to space in a capsule that has bigger windows that will fly into space. It will also offer a great view of the Earth. Jeff Bezos has built New Shepard in his company Blue Origin. It also has a design that serves the burgeoning market for space tourism.
The passengers are including the oldest person to go into space, i.e., Ms. Funk, and the youngest one, Oliver Daemen. Oliver is a student.
Bezos said, “I’m excited. People keep asking me if I’m nervous. I’m not nervous; I’m curious. I want to know what we’re going to learn.”
They have got adequate training. Their vehicle is ready, and their crew is also ready. The team, in his words, is “amazing.” They are feeling very good about it.
Ms. Funk is excited. She commented on her excitement about the mission which is going to happen. They have also waited for a long time and dreamt of it. She said that she would carry the tumbles and somersaults while weightless in space.
In the 1960s, Ms. Funk had been a member of a group of women known as Mercury 13. They have undergone similar screening tests as the male astronauts. However, they didn’t get the chance to fly into space.
At 14: 00 BST, four of the passengers will lift off on a rocket from the private launch site of Bezos in Van Horn, Texas. The capsule separates from its booster around 76 km up. The rocket will also land on its legs about 2 miles from the launch pad. The capsule will continue to go upward to an altitude of around 106 km.
Bezos said, “We’re in zero-g for around four minutes, and we get to get out of our seats, unstrap, float around, look at the thin limb of the Earth’s atmosphere.”
The views are going to be terrific. Also, the zero-g will be a very unusual experience that is hard to get on the Earth. After reaching up to its maximum altitude, the capsule starts its descent, and it will parachute down on soft-land on a desert.
This launch is the latest salvo which is having the tag as the “billionaire space race”. It comes after the nine days when the space rival of Bezos, Sir Richard Branson, flew high above the Earth on a Virgin Galactic spaceplane.
Oliver is the son of Joes Daemen, the founder of Somerset Capital Partners. Bezos and Branson faced many backlashes on social media for using such huge money, but they still have their focus.
Credits: BBC
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