by Ailan Evans
Former Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos and three other passengers successfully launched into space Tuesday aboard the billionaire’s Blue Origin New Shepard spacecraft.
Liftoff!!
Blue Origin’s New Shepard rocket launches, carrying the company’s first crew and heading toward space.https://t.co/kYI3pmFsLB #BlueOrigin #JeffBezos pic.twitter.com/Xs0TnjpVbE
— Michael Sheetz (@thesheetztweetz) July 20, 2021
The spacecraft lifted off at 9:12 a.m. ET carrying Bezos, his brother Mark, 18-year-old Joshua Daemen, and 82-year-old aviator Wally Funk. The crew was outside of the Earth’s atmosphere for several minutes before descending.
The flight was 11 minutes in total, and reached the Karman line, a 62-mile-high boundary separating the Earth’s atmosphere from the stratosphere.
Bezos could be heard on the broadcast calling the flight “the best day ever.”
Cheers from the crowd as the capsule deploys the parachutes as crew gets ready to land. #NewShepard #BlueOrigin pic.twitter.com/QC1LukllWQ
— Jeff Paul (@Jeff_Paul) July 20, 2021
The launch comes on the 52nd anniversary of the Apollo 11 moon landing, in which Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin walked on the surface of the moon.
Bezos owns aerospace company Blue Origin, which manufactured the New Shepard rocket used in the flight. The rocket had a detachable booster that piloted itself back to earth and a crew capsule that separated from the booster two-and-a-half minutes into the flight.
BREAKING: Blue Origin successfully lands its first crewed spaceflight.🚀 https://t.co/6MSNDv5x9w pic.twitter.com/8ic8kUdzjV
— Cheddar (@cheddar) July 20, 2021
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Ailan Evans is a reporter at Daily Caller News Foundation.
