space tour jeff bezos

Jeff Bezos Blasts Himself Off-Planet, Helping to Usher In a New Era of Space Tourism

G ive Jeff Bezos this: When he builds a rocket, he rides the rocket, strapping his own mortal hide into a seat and test-flying what he’s developed before inviting paying passengers aboard to make the same journey. “If it’s not safe for me, it’s not safe for anyone,” Bezos said in a video segment released by Blue Origin, his private rocket company, before Tuesday morning’s first crewed launch of its New Shepard rocket on a suborbital lob shot that soared to an altitude of 106 km (66 mi.).

Today, the rocket—which had previously flown 15 uncrewed missions to suborbital space—indeed proved safe not just for Bezos, but for the three other passengers aboard with him: Wally Funk, 82, an aviator and flight instructor and now the oldest person to fly in space; Mark Bezos, marketing executive and volunteer firefighter and Jeff Bezos’s brother; and Oliver Daemen, 18, a paying passenger who became the youngest person to fly in space, after his father, the founder of the Dutch hedge fund Somerset Capital Partners, purchased him the seat for an undisclosed multimillion dollar price tag.

The flight, which lifted off from the Texas desert shortly after 8:00 a.m. CT, was, by modern-day standards, a modest affair. It essentially replicated the suborbital flight of the first American in space, Alan Shepard (after whom the rocket is named), which took place just over 60 years ago. In fact, Shepard actually bested Bezos and his crew—at least in terms of altitude, flying to a loftier 187 km [116 miles], easily exceeding the 100 km (62 mi.) Von Karman line, which is the internationally recognized boundary of space. Bezos’ flight just barely cleared that bar.

Still, the machinery on display today was impressive and flew its flight profile faultlessly. The compact 18 m (60-ft.) tall rocket is powered by a single engine, fueled by clean-burning liquid oxygen and liquid hydrogen—the same fuel NASA used for the second and third stages of its legendary Saturn V moon rocket. The engine burned for just over two minutes, accelerating the ship to a maximum speed of 3,540 k/h (2,200 mph), and an altitude of roughly 80 km (50 mi.). Twenty seconds later, the crew capsule—which can accommodate up to six people in a roomy 15 cubic m (530 cubic ft) interior—separated from the booster, and continued coasting upward, breaking the Von Karman barrier and affording the crew about four minutes of weightlessness and sightseeing.

The ride down was a free fall for the passengers—subjecting them to a maximum gravitational force of 5.5 g’s—before three small drogue parachutes opened, followed by three main parachutes, slowly lowering the capsule toward the dusty Texas scrubland. About 2 m (six ft.) above ground, a blast of air was released from the bottom of the capsule, providing a cushioning that set the passengers down at a speed of less than 3.2 k/h (2 mph). The rocket itself landed up right on a pad 3.2 km (2 mi.) north of the launch site.

“Best day ever,” Bezos said after the capsule touched down.

For Blue Origin it was indeed a good day—though how soon the company will begin flying commercial passengers able to pay in the low six figures for a 10-minute vacation is unclear. There are only two more crewed flights planned before the end of the year, both of which will be flown by wealthier customers who will compete in an auction for the right to ride—at prices that are expected to reach into the millions. Sir Richard Branson, who beat Bezos to space by nine days aboard his Virgin Galactic VSS Unity space plane, is similarly unclear on how soon his company will at last begin long-delayed commercial flights. Both men insist they are not in competition with each other—never mind the barbs that came out of Blue Origin after Branson’s flight, pointing out that he reached a maximum altitude of only 80 km (50 mi.), a boundary that the U.S. military recognizes as the edge of space, even if the rest of the world doesn’t.

“I know nobody will believe me, but honestly there isn’t [any competition with Bezos],” Branson told NBC’s Today on July 6.

Maybe, but that’s for later. For now, both billionaires have notched big wins—earning their astronaut wings for themselves, and in the process legitimizing their companies’ claims that they have the wherewithal to open a new market for space tourism. Whether enough customers will eventually come is unclear, but the hardware, at least, is ready to fly them.

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Write to Jeffrey Kluger at [email protected]

Jeff Bezos reaches space—a small step toward big spaceflight dreams

The first crewed New Shepard launch carried Bezos, his brother, and the oldest and youngest people to ever go to space: 82-year-old aviation pioneer Wally Funk, and an 18-year-old Dutch student.

This morning, as the sun climbed over a private spaceport in rural West Texas, a six-story-tall rocket lit its engines and lifted off, carrying a spacecraft with four people on board—the first passengers to ride Blue Origin ’s New Shepard rocket to the top of the sky. The rocket hurtled star-ward, and at about 250,000 feet the crew capsule separated from the booster and continued to the edge of the atmosphere, while the rocket fell back to Earth and executed a controlled vertical landing.

As the capsule climbed, the crew members unbuckled their seatbelts and floated in weightlessness for a few minutes, whooping excitedly as they took in the views out the windows. At 351,210 feet, not quite in orbit but well above the 62-mile line marking the internationally recognized boundary of space , the capsule began to fall. About ten minutes after launch, parachutes helped it safely alight back on Earth.

The flight carried a haphazard crew by spaceflight standards. One of the passengers was Jeff Bezos , founder of Blue Origin and currently the world’s richest person . His brother Mark joined him for the inaugural flight. And perhaps outshining the Bezos brothers, at least for those versed in aerospace history, is Wally Funk , an 82-year old aviator who has dreamed of being an astronaut since the early days of NASA’s human spaceflight program—when she trained to be an astronaut and outperformed the seven men chosen for the Mercury program on many of the tests , but did not get a chance to go to space.

“It’s dark up here!” Funk exclaimed as she floated in space.

Completing the crew is Oliver Daemen , an 18-year-old from the Netherlands, now the youngest person to visit space. Daemen’s father paid an undisclosed amount for his son to experience weightlessness, see the darkened sky, and gaze at Earth’s curved horizon for a few fleeting minutes.

“I’ve been waiting for years to see, when are they going to decide to fly humans?” says Laura Seward Forczyk , founder of the aerospace consulting firm Astralytical , about Blue Origin. “It’s nice that they’ve finally decided that now is the time—they’ve had this plan for years, so this is a long time coming.”

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A small step toward a big dream.

Tuesday’s 10-minute flight marks a milestone for Blue Origin. The company has been relatively secretive about the development of its spacecraft compared to industry rivals SpaceX , founded by Elon Musk, and Virgin Galactic , helmed by Richard Branson. Like the latter, which flew Branson into space on July 11 , Blue Origin plans to offer customer flights aboard New Shepard starting later this year . Those flights will allow up to six people at a time to experience the brief thrill ride to space, which includes some four minutes of weightlessness .

It’s not clear how hefty the price tag for that opportunity will be—but Blue Origin says it has a list of passengers waiting for their turn to make the parabolic journey. One of those is an anonymous customer who bid $28 million for a chance to fly on this inaugural flight but had to postpone the trip to space at the last minute because of “scheduling conflicts,” the company said .

Blue Origin also has loftier projects waiting in the wings. The company is designing a lunar lander and a larger rocket, called New Glenn , that could carry humans into Earth orbit and beyond—into the realms of space stations and satellites, of moonwalks and envisioned off-world futures.

Bezos has said he founded Blue Origin because he wants to help create a future where millions of people live in space, residing on lush, rotating manufactured worlds in orbit . Sending passengers on suborbital flights is a logical first step aligned with that vision, says industry analyst Carissa Christensen , founder and CEO of Bryce Space and Technology , an aerospace consulting firm.

“I take very literally what Jeff Bezos has said publicly, that he really believes in the importance and the value of human access to space, of broadening and expanding that access, of enabling a future where people live and work in space,” Christensen says. “There are plenty of ways for Jeff Bezos to spend his time and his treasure ,” she notes, but he’s chosen to “put his personal finances into a launch company.”

Jeff Bezos and crew dressed fro fist crewed flight.

Critics, however, are quick to point out that neither Blue Origin nor Virgin Galactic are really broadening access to space with these commercial flights—at least not yet. These first crews are populated by extremely wealthy individuals and their guests, and many experts question whether such suborbital flights are anything more than joyrides for the ultra-rich. After all, how accessible can space be if the price of a ticket is astronomical?

“Space remains a very elite place—a place that’s hard to get to, a place that’s impossible to reach for 99 percent of humans, and it’s just sort of the flavor of the elite that’s changing,” says space historian Jordan Bimm of the University of Chicago. “If it took ‘the right stuff’ to get to space in the 1960s, now it kind of takes the right friends—or the right bank accounts. It’s not the utopian vision of space that some people are trafficking in right now, as I see it.”

Blue Origin’s origin

Bezos founded Blue Origin in 2000, but the company stayed under the radar until the Amazon founder picked a spot to build a spaceport: the shrubby, sparsely populated desert just north of Van Horn, Texas, a town of about 2,000 that’s the seat of Culberson County. In 2003, local ranchers began getting persistent calls from a Seattle-based attorney representing an anonymous client who wanted to buy their land —and who had seemingly bottomless pockets. Some held out until the rising offers grew too lucrative to refuse. But by 2005, Bezos had accumulated 165,000 acres in the region ( an area that has since nearly doubled ), and dubbed the property “Corn Ranch.”

That same year, he visited Van Horn and revealed his grand design for the site north of town, surprising residents with his vision of a spaceport. From there, Bezos said, a new spaceship would launch, and it would serve as a step in his ultimate goal of sending millions of humans to live and work in space.

John Conoly, a longtime Culberson County judge, was impressed. “I have every confidence in the world he will do what he says he will do,” Conoly told The Associated Press in 2005. “I know he’s going to have some of the best minds for this project. He doesn’t do things halfway or second class.”

Step by step

Fast forward to today. Other than a handful of astronauts on the International Space Station, humans are still firmly planted on this planet. The same aura of mystery and determination continues to characterize Blue Origin, although the company has made some public forecasts about when milestones would be reached. Today’s flight, for example, was originally anticipated to occur in 2018 .

It’s just one of many missed deadlines. But Blue Origin presses on.

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“I see Jeff Bezos taking this sort of patient approach, where he doesn’t want the flashiness that you get from Branson or Musk. He’s happy to keep the failures under wraps and just sort of produce win-win-win-win and hope that adds up to something unstoppable,” Bimm says. “I think you have to look at the development of Amazon, and its sort of slow and steady and under-the-surface work that eventually emerged as this juggernaut.”

Fittingly, Blue Origin’s motto is gradatim ferociter , meaning “step by step, ferociously.” Its mascot is a tortoise, perhaps a reference to the plodding reptile that persevered and bested the faster, favored hare.

In November 2015, the company scored an unexpected win over SpaceX when it vertically landed a rocket booster for the first time in history —a huge step toward reusability, which is key to the company’s vision.

Including that first touchdown, New Shepard has achieved 15 successful flights and 14 landings with three boosters, one of which has flown seven times. Those flights brought dozens of science and educational payloads to the edge of space , including investigations of microgravity’s effects on gene expression, cells, and tissues. Blue Origin has also launched art-related payloads, including two projects produced in partnership with the band OK Go .

Like today’s flight, the boosters from these past flights stuck their landings, and the crew capsules parachuted back to Earth, touching down on land like Russia’s Soyuz spacecraft have done since the 1960s. As Blue Origin works toward launching orbital flights, the company is following a trajectory that was established by NASA at the dawn of the human space age—first head to suborbital space, then rocket into orbit, then attempt more ambitious missions, like building space stations or flying to the moon.

“It’s a bit back to the future,” says Jennifer Levasseur , a space historian at the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum, which just received a $200 million donation from Bezos . “We’ve been down this path before in terms of scaling up the capability of rockets. This is not new territory.”

Blue Origin is also working on a rocket engine, called BE-4 , that it sold to fellow launch company United Launch Alliance (ULA)—although ULA is reportedly frustrated with delivery delays .

The BE-4 engine is also key to Blue Origin’s eagerly anticipated New Glenn rocket , a planned 321-foot, two-stage vehicle that is being built in a factory that Blue Origin constructed outside of Florida’s Cape Canaveral in 2016 . After repeated delays, the first New Glenn flight is reportedly slated for 2022 .

Both New Shepard and New Glenn are named after NASA astronauts who achieved significant firsts in the Mercury program— Alan Shepard , the first U.S. astronaut to make a journey to suborbital space, and John Glenn , the first American to orbit the Earth.

“Bezos is pretty clearly enmeshed in the history component of what he’s doing,” Levasseur says. “He spent millions of dollars to support the effort to retrieve parts of the Apollo launch vehicle from the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean. I saw some of those pieces in the museum just the other day, and reflected on it, and you know, there’s just a long trail of evidence for where we’ve ended up today in terms of what this specific person wanted to achieve.”

Until Wally Funk launched on today’s flight, John Glenn was also the oldest person to visit space, having flown aboard the space shuttle Discovery in 1998 at age 77. In the 1960s, Funk outperformed Glenn on many of the exercises she completed while training for spaceflight as part of a private program. Funk and a dozen other women dubbed “the Mercury 13” participated in and passed the same rigorous assessments as NASA’s Mercury 7 —but the space agency wasn’t accepting women as astronauts.

“She was denied her chance to go to space so many times because she was a woman in a time where women were discriminated against ,” Forcyzk says. “Just seeing her fly in space on this Blue Origin flight will be so inspirational to so many people who have followed the history of the Mercury 13 and who know how much of an injustice that was.”

Building a future in space for everyone

We’re living in an age where wealthy entrepreneurs and government space programs both influence humanity’s off-world future. Musk, Bezos, and Branson each have a vision of what that future looks like. For Musk, it’s on Mars ; for Bezos, it’s closer to Earth .

But translating those dreams into reality is proving tricky, and not just because of technology. Right now, the barrier to entry is astronomical, and space remains the realm of the wealthy and elite, Bimm says. Although Blue Origin has yet to announce a price point for its flights, Virgin Galactic has advertised seats at $250,000 each, and the company, which says at least 600 tickets have already been reserved , is expected to raise the price .

“We’ve done a number of studies that are finding that there is a meaningful level of demand, by which I mean at least hundreds of people a year at the price point around $250,000,” says Christensen, whose research looks at the future market for suborbital flights. In fact, there is “potential for much more than that, to go into thousands of people a year, if the price drops significantly.”

There’s little doubt that the first passengers on these flights will be predominantly white and wealthy—as Levasseur points out, rich people have always gone on exotic, expensive voyages, whether to Antarctica, the abyssal seafloor, or the summit of Everest.

Space, however, carries different connotations than destinations on Earth—particularly if future commercial missions shift from joyrides to building a permanent future among the stars.

“Who gets to go to space, and what does that mean, and what does that say about us—the societies that are putting these people in space?” Bimm asks. “Do they really believe that space is for all humankind? What are they basing this utopian idea of spaceflight on, actually?”

Answers to these questions may emerge as commercial suborbital flights continue—but for now, the industry is just getting off the ground. Bimm and other experts say it will be important to keep an eye on the passenger manifests to see how they evolve, and to watch whether some of these early flights include efforts to be more inclusive.

It’s also possible that commercial suborbital flights will not be as enticing as these entrepreneurs hope, and that the enterprise will crumble. But even if that happens, visions of life in space will persist. They always have. And Bimm says it’s key for those with big dreams to recognize that building an existence in space starts here on Earth—that the humans floating through the space stations of the future or watching blue Martian sunsets won’t be able to escape Earth’s issues.

“Space isn’t this transformative place,” Bimm says. “It’s a place where all of our problems on Earth are going to be reproduced or amplified, and we need to see that. We can’t just wear these rose-colored glasses.”

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Jeff Bezos launches into space on Blue Origin's 1st astronaut flight

Bezos and three others launched on a suborbital trip aboard Blue Origin's New Shepard.

LAUNCH SITE ONE, West Texas — The richest person on Earth has now traveled beyond it.

Jeff Bezos , the billionaire founder of the spaceflight company Blue Origin, launched into suborbital space with three other people today (July 20) on the first crewed mission of the company's New Shepard vehicle — a landmark moment for the man and the space tourism industry.

"Blue Control, Bezos. Best day ever!" Bezos said while in flight.

The autonomous New Shepard , which consists of a rocket topped by a capsule, lifted off from Blue Origin's Launch Site One near the West Texas town of Van Horn today at 9:11 a.m. EDT (1311 GMT; 8:11 a.m. local time).

Live updates: Blue Origin's first astronaut launch updates

Blue Origin’s New Shepard lifts-off from the launch pad carrying Jeff Bezos along with his brother Mark Bezos, 18-year-old Oliver Daemen, and 82-year-old Wally Funk on July 20, 2021 in Van Horn, Texas.

The capsule carried Bezos, 57, his brother Mark, 53, 82-year-old aviation pioneer Wally Funk and 18-year-old Dutch physics student Oliver Daemen 66.5 miles (107 kilometers) above Earth, then came down for a parachute-aided, dust-raising landing in the West Texas scrublands. The rocket also returned safely, making a vertical, powered touchdown at its designated landing zone. Its descent was punctuated by a deafening sonic boom, along with raucous cheers from the Blue Origin workers here who watched the flight.

All of this action, from liftoff to landings, took just over 10 minutes. But it was doubtless the experience of a lifetime for the four passengers.

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"Oh my god!" Bezos said during a post-flight press conference today. "My expectations were high, and they were dramatically exceeded."

Funk said that she "loved every minute of it," even though there wasn't quite enough room in New Shepard for all four of the passengers to do rolls and flips simultaneously.

"It was great," she said. "I loved it. I can hardly wait to go again."

Bezos became the second billionaire to reach space in less than two weeks. On July 11, Virgin Group founder Richard Branson flew on the first fully crewed flight of the VSS Unity space plane, which is operated by Virgin Galactic, Blue Origin's chief rival in the suborbital space tourism business.

Related: Blue Origin's launch with Jeff Bezos: Everything you need to know

Two decades of work

Bezos founded Blue Origin in September 2000, six years after he established Amazon. The spaceflight company worked stealthily for a decade, generally staying out of the public eye.

That changed in 2010, when Blue Origin won a contract from NASA's Commercial Crew Program, which aimed to encourage the development of private American astronaut taxis to fill the shoes of the space shuttle, which was about to retire. The company snagged another contract the next year but didn't land the big deal; NASA announced in 2014 that it had selected the vehicles built by SpaceX and Boeing — capsules known as Crew Dragon and CST-100 Starliner , respectively.

Blue Origin continued to work on its own vehicles, including New Shepard, which is designed to carry people and payloads on brief trips to suborbital space. The 59-foot-tall (18 meters) craft is named after NASA astronaut Alan Shepard , whose suborbital jaunt on May 5, 1961, was the United States' first crewed spaceflight.

New Shepard first launched to suborbital space in April 2015. The capsule landed softly as planned on that flight, but the rocket crashed during its touchdown attempt. But the next New Shepard iteration aced a test flight that November, pulling off the first-ever vertical landing of a rocket during a space mission. (SpaceX nailed a landing of its own a month later with the first stage of its Falcon 9 orbital rocket, a feat Elon Musk's company has now pulled off more than 80 times.)

In January 2016, the same New Shepard flew successfully again, notching another reusability milestone. Over the next five-plus years, that vehicle and two others flew 12 more uncrewed test missions, the latest an "astronaut rehearsal" this past April .

All were successful, paving the way for today's mission, which was the third flight of the fourth New Shepard vehicle, known as RSS Next Step.

Making, and acknowledging, history

Blue Origin announced the July 20 target on May 5. Both of those dates were chosen advisedly: May 5 was the 60th anniversary of Shepard's pioneering flight , and July 20 is the 52nd anniversary of the Apollo 11 moon landing.

Bezos has often cited Apollo 11 as a big inspiration, saying that his dreams of spaceflight were born when he watched the historic lunar landing at the age of five.

There were many nods to history on the flight today as well. Bezos and his crewmates carried with them a piece of canvas from the plane that the Wright Brothers flew for the first time in 1903; a medallion from the first hot-air balloon flight, in 1783; and a pair of goggles that once belonged to Amelia Earhart. In addition, Alan Shepard's daughters Laura and Julia were on hand to witness the flight.

Blue Origin made some history of its own today, and not just for the company annals: Funk and Daemen became the oldest and youngest people, respectively, ever to reach the final frontier.

The off-Earth journey was a dose of long-overdue justice for Funk. She's one of the " Mercury 13 ," women who passed NASA's physiological screening tests in the early days of the space age but were never seriously considered for flight. Back then, you had to be a man — and more specifically, a white military man — to be a NASA astronaut.

The agency didn't fly a female astronaut to space until June 1983, when Sally Ride reached orbit on the space shuttle Challenger's STS-7 mission. (Challenger's STS-8 flight, which launched that August, carried Guion Bluford , the first African American to reach space.)

Funk takes the oldest-spaceflyer mantle from John Glenn , who launched at the age of 77 in October 1998 on the STS-95 mission of the shuttle Discovery, decades after becoming the first American to reach orbit.

Blue Origin announced on July 1 that today's flight would include Funk. Daemen was a later addition to the manifest; the company revealed his participation just last Thursday (July 16). In mid-June, Blue Origin auctioned off the fourth and final seat on RSS Next Step, for the astronomical sum of $28 million. But the still-anonymous person who placed that bid had scheduling conflicts, company representatives said, so Daemen took their place.

Daemen's father, Somerset Capital Partners CEO Joes Daemen, paid for the seat and decided to let his son fly, CNBC reported . So, in addition to all the other milestones, RSS Next Step flew its first paying customer today.

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Suborbital space tourism lifts off

Virgin Galactic made its big announcement about Branson's flight on July 1, the same day that Blue Origin did its Funk reveal. The dramatic news drops sparked many stories about a "billionaire space race," which both Branson and Bezos have attempted to tamp down .

"There's one person who was the first person in space — his name was Yuri Gagarin — and that happened a long time ago," Bezos said on TODAY, referring to the cosmonaut's landmark orbital mission on April 12, 1961. (And Branson wasn't the first billionaire to reach the final frontier. For example, megarich software architect Charles Simonyi bought two trips to the International Space Station, flying there in 2007 and 2009 aboard Russian Soyuz spacecraft.)

"I think I'm gonna be number 570 or something; that's where we're gonna be in this list," Bezos added. "So this isn't a competition. This is about building a road to space so that future generations can do incredible things in space."

Blue Origin aims to help make those incredible things happen over the long haul. The company is building an orbital launch system called New Glenn and a lunar lander named Blue Moon. Blue Origin also leads "The National Team," a private consortium that proposed a crewed landing system for use by NASA's Artemis program of lunar exploration. NASA picked SpaceX's Starship vehicle for that job, but The National Team and another unsuccessful submitter, Alabama-based company Dynetics, have filed protests about the decision with the U.S. Government Accountability Office.

Whether or not there's personal competition between Branson and Bezos, the companies led by the two billionaires are vying for the same relatively small pool of rich, adventurous customers.

Virgin Galactic's most recently stated ticket price was $250,000. Blue Origin has not announced how much it's charging for a regular (non-auctioned) seat, but it's thought to be in the low six figures as well.

Both companies offer passengers three to four minutes of weightlessness and great views of Earth against the blackness of space. But there are significant differences between the two flight experiences. For example, New Shepard is an autonomous capsule that launches vertically and lands under parachutes, whereas VSS Unity is a two-pilot space plane that takes off under the wing of a carrier aircraft and lands on a runway.

New Shepard also gets a few miles higher than VSS Unity, a fact that Blue Origin highlighted in a couple of Twitter posts on July 9 . Those tweets told folks that spaceflights with Virgin Galactic come with an asterisk because Unity doesn't reach the Kármán line, the 62-mile-high (100 km) mark considered by some to be the point where space begins . (Unity does fly higher than 50 miles, or 80 km, the boundary recognized by NASA, the U.S. military and the Federal Aviation Administration.)

This competition will heat up soon, if all goes according to plan. Blue Origin plans to launch two more crewed New Shepard missions this year, with the next one targeted for September or October, company representatives said during a prelaunch press conference on Sunday (July 18). Those flights will presumably have paying customers on board, just as today's did.

Virgin Galactic aims to fly a few more test flights this fall, then begin full commercial operations early next year from Spaceport America in New Mexico. Both companies plan to ramp up their flight rate over time, allowing them to reduce prices and broaden the customer pool substantially — perhaps enough for the rest of us to swim in it someday.

This story was updated at 2:00 p.m. EDT to include comments and details from the post-flight press conference.

Mike Wall is the author of " Out There " (Grand Central Publishing, 2018; illustrated by Karl Tate), a book about the search for alien life. Follow him on Twitter @michaeldwall. Follow us on Twitter @Spacedotcom or Facebook.

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Michael Wall is a Senior Space Writer with Space.com and joined the team in 2010. He primarily covers exoplanets, spaceflight and military space, but has been known to dabble in the space art beat. His book about the search for alien life, "Out There," was published on Nov. 13, 2018. Before becoming a science writer, Michael worked as a herpetologist and wildlife biologist. He has a Ph.D. in evolutionary biology from the University of Sydney, Australia, a bachelor's degree from the University of Arizona, and a graduate certificate in science writing from the University of California, Santa Cruz. To find out what his latest project is, you can follow Michael on Twitter.

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Jeff Bezos Will Fly Aboard Blue Origin’s First Human Trip to Space

Mr. Bezos and his brother, Mark, will be on board when his rocket company launches its first human spaceflight next month, shortly after he steps down as chief executive of Amazon.

By Derrick Bryson Taylor and Kenneth Chang

In the battle of billionaires with rocket companies, Jeff Bezos will finally beat Elon Musk.

Mr. Bezos, the founder of Amazon, said on Monday that he would take a trip to space next month when Blue Origin , the rocket company he founded more than two decades ago, conducts its first human spaceflight.

“Ever since I was five years old, I’ve dreamed of traveling to space,” Mr. Bezos, 57, said on Instagram . He said his brother Mark would join him on the flight, allowing him to embark on “the greatest adventure, with my best friend.”

Mr. Bezos made the announcement in the middle of a busy year for human spaceflight . Blue Origin’s biggest competitors in private rocketry, SpaceX and Virgin Galactic, have both announced a number of trips to carry a variety of individuals on launches or flights high above the planet, but neither as yet plans a passenger of such a high profile.

Mr. Bezos predicted that he would be a new man after his journey to space : “It changes your relationship with this planet, with humanity,” he said. “It’s one earth. I want to go on this flight because it’s the thing I’ve wanted to do all my life.”

The trip may bring some renewed attention to Blue Origin, which has taken a slower approach to the development of its vehicles than the other companies, and recently lost out to Mr. Musk’s company in a bid to build the next lander that would carry NASA astronauts back to the moon.

SpaceX has a couple of missions in the next 12 months that are to take private citizens to orbit . One is scheduled to launch in September and will carry Jared Isaacman, the billionaire founder of Shift4 Payments, and three other amateur astronauts , on a trip to orbit. A second, booked by the company Axiom Space, will carry three wealthy individuals and an astronaut working for the company to the International Space Station. Mr. Musk has said he would eventually want to go to Mars, but he has not announced any plans to go to space himself in the near future.

Richard Branson, another billionaire who founded Virgin Galactic, in 2004, has been anticipating for more than a decade a ride on Virgin’s long-delayed SpaceShipTwo suborbital space plane, which is a competitor of New Shepard. The company completed its latest test flight last mont h, and Mr. Branson may finally get his wish later this year.

Blue Origin’s achievements lag far behind those of SpaceX, Mr. Musk’s rocket company. SpaceX has been regularly launching its Falcon 9 rockets to orbit for more than a decade including taking NASA cargo and astronauts to the International Space Station. Axiom Space last week announced three additional flights to orbit using SpaceX’s Crew Dragon. SpaceX is also planning to fly Yusaku Maezwa , a billionaire who founded the online clothing company ZOZO in Japan, on a trip around the moon in its next-generation Starship spacecraft .

In April, SpaceX beat out Blue Origin and another company, Dynetics, to snag a NASA contract to build the lander that is to take astronauts back to the moon in a few years. ( Both Blue Origin and Dynetics have protested the award. )

Blue Origin, by contrast, has so far only conducted a series of 15 uncrewed test fights of its much smaller New Shepard vehicle. New Shepard is designed to take six people on short suborbital flights — rising above the 62-miles altitude generally regarded as the edge of space but then immediately coming back down instead of accelerating to the high velocities needed to enter orbit around Earth.

While New Shepard has yet to carry any passengers, it has been paid to fly science experiments for NASA and private scientists during test flights of the New Shepard spacecraft.

Mr. Bezos’ company announced last month that it was finally ready to put people on board for its next test flight, the 16th, on July 20, the 52nd anniversary of the Apollo 11 moon landing.

Blue Origin has yet to say how much tickets on Blue Origin will cost, but it is auctioning one seat on the July 20 flight. Bidding has reached $2.8 million with nearly 6,000 participants from 143 countries, the company said.

While Jeff Bezos, as founder of Amazon and one of the richest people in the world, has long been in the public spotlight, his younger brother Mark, 50, has lived a more private life. He is a co-founder and general partner at HighPost Capital, a private equity firm. Mark Bezos previously worked as head of communications at the Robin Hood Foundation, a charity that aids anti-poverty efforts in New York City.

In 2011, Mark Bezos spoke at a TED conference about his experiences as a volunteer firefighter in Scarsdale, N.Y. He recalled that the first volunteer who arrived at a house fire was assigned to retrieve the homeowner’s dogs.

“The dog!” Mark Bezos said during the talk. “I was stunned with jealousy. Here was some lawyer or money manager who, for the rest of his life, gets to tell people that he went into a burning building to save a living creature, just because he beat me by five seconds.

As the second volunteer at the site, he was told to go get a pair of shoes from the house. A few weeks later, the homeowner wrote to thank the firefighters for their efforts, and in particular, she noted that someone had even gotten her a pair of shoes.

“In both my vocation at Robin Hood and my avocation as a volunteer firefighter,” Mark Bezos said. “I am witness to acts of generosity and kindness on a monumental scale, but I’m also witness to acts of grace and courage on an individual basis. And you know what I’ve learned? They all matter.”

At a joint appearance by the brothers in 2017 at Summit, a leadership conference , a, Jeff Bezos said people sometimes mistakenly think he was the one who spoke at TED. “Every once in a while, somebody will stop me and say, ‘I love your TED Talk about being a firefighter, and small acts of kindness,’ said Jeff Bezos who added he usually corrects them that it was actually Mark. “But if I’m in a hurry, I just say thank you,” Jeff Bezos said.

Mark Bezos then joked, “But if any of you do get confused, I’m the one with the smaller bank account, to your left.”

Last year, Mark Bezos listed his 10,000-square foot Scarsdale home and four-acre property for sale asking for $11 million.

The Blue Origin tourist rocket that the brothers will fly on is named after Alan Shepard, the first American to go to space, in 1961.

The launch next month will occur at Blue Origin’s site in West Texas. At about 47 miles, or 250,000 feet, the capsule carrying the passengers will separate from its booster. The astronauts will then get to unbuckle and experience weightlessness for nearly three minutes before the capsule returns to Earth. Because the capsule is fully pressurized, passengers will not be required to wear spacesuits or helmets.

Mr. Bezos said in February that he would step down as chief executive of Amazon on July 5 . Andy Jassy, the chief of Amazon’s cloud computing division, will become chief executive, while Mr. Bezos will become executive chairman. Mr. Bezos said he wanted to put more time and energy into his other passions, including Blue Origin.

Mr. Bezos predicts that in the decades ahead, millions of people will live and work in space.

Blue Origin’s business includes building rocket engines, which it sells to another rocket company, United Launch Alliance, and which it plans to use for its larger orbital rocket, New Glenn. But Blue Origin lost out to SpaceX and United Launch Alliance in a competition to launch satellites for the Department of Defense, and the maiden launch of New Glenn has been delayed to late next year. However, its rocket engines are to help U.L.A. launch a robotic moon lander for NASA as early as the end of this year, the first spacecraft the agency has sent to the moon’s surface since 1972.

Kitty Bennett contributed research.

Derrick Bryson Taylor is a general assignment reporter. He previously worked at The New York Post's PageSix.com and Essence magazine. More about Derrick Bryson Taylor

Kenneth Chang has been at The Times since 2000, writing about physics, geology, chemistry, and the planets. Before becoming a science writer, he was a graduate student whose research involved the control of chaos. More about Kenneth Chang

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Jeff Bezos Knows Who Paid for Him to Go to Space

The world’s richest man commissioned the rocket, but his Amazon empire—the customers and the workers—covered the bill.

The New Shepard Blue Origin rocket lifts-off from the launch pad

Updated at 1:45 p.m. ET on July 20, 2021.

VAN HORN, Texas—Jeff Bezos really flew to space. This morning, the richest person on Earth boarded a reusable rocket he dreamed up and funded, launched to the edge of space to experience a few minutes of weightlessness, and then came back down.

Bezos made the trip with three people who decided they trusted him enough with their lives: his brother, Mark Bezos; Wally Funk, a storied aviator ; and Oliver Daemen, an 18-year-old fresh out of high school. Before today, Bezos’s private space company, Blue Origin, had not flown its rocket with any people on board. By going first, Bezos wanted to prove that his vehicle is safe, and that Blue Origin is finally ready to make its 11-minute suborbital trips an experience people can buy .

The journey was lightning-fast by spaceflight standards. The Blue Origin rocket rose into the sky with a rumble that echoed across the West Texas desert, and about 11 minutes later, it was all over—the passenger capsule parachuted down, and the Bezos brothers, Funk, and Daemen climbed out, grinning widely. The rocket was back on the launchpad, standing tall, after tearing through the atmosphere with a sonic boom. For this crew, Blue Origin had made spaceflight feel almost as smooth as same-day shipping.

The passengers flew on a rocket called New Shepard, named for the astronaut Alan Shepard, the first American to reach space. They followed a similar trajectory as Shepard did in 1961, but the Blue Origin experience is thoroughly, well, Amazon-like. Shepard, a military pilot, spent months preparing to fly his NASA capsule. Future Blue Origin customers need only show up a few days before launch for some light training on their fully autonomous ride.

Most people know Bezos primarily as the founder of Amazon—in the least flattering version, an ultra-wealthy boss who overworks his employees and hasn’t always paid his share of federal income taxes. But for Bezos, space came first. He remembers watching Apollo 11’s moon landing on his family’s television as a 5-year-old, and as a high-school valedictorian, he spoke about the importance of space travel. If Bezos were anyone else, the story of his spaceflight, of a dream fulfilled, would be simple and sweet.

But if Bezos were anyone else, he wouldn’t have been able to fulfill this dream at all. At a press conference after the launch, Bezos thanked Blue Origin's engineers, and then added, “I also want to thank every Amazon employee and every Amazon customer, ’cause you guys paid for all this.” Because of Amazon, he is the richest person on Earth , who controls the daily life of so many others here—not just his employees, but the hundreds of millions of us who partake, sometimes grudgingly, in the products he owns. Bezos benefits when we buy things (Amazon), eat (Whole Foods), read movie trivia (IMDb), rate books (Goodreads), manage our homes (Alexa), catch up on the news ( The Washington Post ), and go online (Amazon Web Services). We live in the world Bezos built. In that sense, as he floated over the Earth, taking in the beautiful view, he was surveying his kingdom, and adding one more dimension to his realm.

Richard Branson may have beaten Bezos to space, but Blue Origin is working on an even bigger rocket that could fly people and payloads well beyond the edge of space, into orbit around Earth. It’s also developing, with the help of a couple of longtime NASA contractors, technology to return American astronauts to the surface of the moon, by the 2024 deadline that Donald Trump set and that Joe Biden has so far kept . NASA originally chose Elon Musk’s SpaceX for this job, but while Musk joked about the situation—tweeting that Blue Origin “can’t get it up (to orbit) lol”—Bezos directed his staff to formally contest the space agency’s decision. SpaceX’s contract is now on hold .

For Bezos, today’s flight wasn’t just a joyride. The space billionaire still has more to prove. As a businessman, he already has a comfortable hold on the American way of life. As a spaceman, he wants a hold on its way of life among the stars.

The day before he flew to space, Bezos walked around his facility in the West Texas desert, dressed for the part of a cowboy . Big hat, shiny belt buckle, pointed boots—a very different man from tech-scion Bezos , in his puffer vest and aviator sunglasses. He remains buff, the result of an exercise regimen that, according to one of his friends, he took up several years ago so that he could be in good shape for spaceflight.

Bezos spent the summers of his childhood and early teenage years on his grandfather’s ranch in South Texas, fixing windmills, helping castrate cattle, and working his way through the science-fiction collection of the local library, as the journalist Christian Davenport recounts in The Space Barons , a book about Bezos and the other space billionaires. In college, Bezos was the president of a spaceflight club and attended lectures by Gerard O’Neill, the physicist who dreamed of space stations kept in perpetual motion to produce artificial gravity. “It’s always the science-fiction guys,” Bezos later said, according to Davenport. “They think of everything first, and then the builders come along and make it happen."

It helps, of course, when the builders are billionaires. Bezos founded Blue Origin—named for the pale blue dot where humankind arose—in 2000. He was already extraordinarily rich, and he had little trouble buying up land in West Texas to start developing rocket technology in secret. When the company successfully launched its New Shepard rocket for the first time, in 2015, it announced the news a day later, through a carefully curated press release. Bezos was not in a rush back then; Blue Origin’s mascot is a tortoise, and for years Bezos, who would devote one day of his workweek to Blue Origin, was content to move slowly and let the hare in the industry, Musk, run loose. Occasionally they tussled. After Blue Origin launched a rocket and then landed it upright—a historic first in the rocket business—Musk praised Bezos, but made sure to point out that Blue Origin had reached only the edge of space, not orbit . When SpaceX achieved the same feat with an orbital rocket a month later, Bezos playfully ignored the distinction, congratulating Musk with a “Welcome to the club!” Bezos remained unperturbed as Musk raced ahead—until this year, when that NASA moon contract swung out of reach, and something shifted.

Now Blue Origin has made an effort to draw people into Bezos’s space world. The day before the launch, the usually press-averse Bezos gave interviews to the major TV networks while dressed in his cobalt-blue flight suit, with his fellow passengers at his side. Hours before the flight, in the middle of the night, dozens of reporters gathered at the Van Horn Community Center to board shuttles to Blue Origin’s remote facility north of town. Signs of the space company’s presence are sprinkled around Van Horn—a banner stuck to the Cactus Cantina restaurant on the main drag, a mural of the Bezos brothers painted on the side of an abandoned storefront. The locals speak of the Blue Origin site as if it were a mystical place, shrouded in a force field few can penetrate. It is certainly no Cape Canaveral; a safety briefing for reporters warned of the myriad dangers of the remote site, from hazardous materials to wild hogs. As the press bus drove out of the community-center parking lot and into the darkness, I realized that I had flown nearly 2,000 miles and driven 115 miles to get here, but I had no idea where Blue Origin was taking me. It felt like being invited to a reclusive, eccentric person’s home for dinner, only the host was going to launch into space during the main course.

Bezos’s entire endeavor, historic as it might be, seems to some people like pure excess, the whim of a leader who has lost touch with the average person’s sense of the world. Even some of Blue Origin’s employees have had concerns; in April 2020, as the coronavirus swept across the United States, The Verge ’s Loren Grush reported that some workers felt that managers were pressuring them to keep up the pace, prioritizing the development of New Shepard over their health and safety.

As the day of Bezos’s flight drew closer, critics asked him to read the room , to pay more attention to Earth and spend money on problems closer to home. Bezos did—a bit, by billionaire standards— donating $19 million from Blue Origin’s coffers to space-related organizations, and $200 million of his own fortune to the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum. After his flight, Bezos announced more giveaways—$100 million each to the news anchor Van Jones and the chef José Andrés, who both run nonprofit organizations, to distribute to whatever charities they like.

The criticism of space travel as frivolous is as old as the act itself; in the golden age of NASA, the ire was directed at a government deemed neglectful of its constituents; in the gilded age of private space tourism, it is aimed at billionaires seen as frivolous. But paying attention to Earth and looking toward the stars are not contradictory acts, nor does one come at the detriment of the other. As Chanda Prescod-Weinstein, a theoretical physicist at the University of New Hampshire, recently wrote in a Washington Post op-ed, “We don’t actually face a choice between basic human needs and exciting journeys into the universe.” While NASA has some responsibility to get the public’s buy-in for its missions beyond Earth, the space billionaires don’t. They can try, as Bezos and Branson have done, but the sell is harder when part of their motivation is so obviously personal.

For Bezos in particular, selling the value of such a journey is a different challenge from any other he has attempted. People might not like how he runs Amazon, but they need toilet paper, or scissors, or a book, or some other mundane item that the company can provide, faster and with greater customer ease than anyone else. Amazon and Bezos’s other companies have population-size customer bases; Blue Origin, given the cost of a ticket—which remains under wraps, but is rumored to be several hundred thousand dollars—will have far fewer customers, at least in Bezos’s lifetime. No one needs to go to space right now.

But Bezos believes humankind will need to soon—not just the elites who can afford Blue Origin’s services, but all kinds of people. The space-nerd valedictorian told his classmates that people should move to space in order to preserve the Earth, and as an adult he still believes that . Of the space billionaires, Bezos is perhaps the most nostalgic. He has named his rockets after the spacefarers of NASA’s early years, and scheduled his spaceflight for the anniversary of the first moon landing. Bezos once organized a secret, expensive expedition to scour the seafloor off the coast of Florida in search of the discarded engines from the gargantuan rocket that lofted the Apollo 11 astronauts toward the moon. When the hardware was hauled onto the ship, Bezos was on deck, wiping the salty mud off the wreck like it was treasure.

Bezos has made himself a significant character in the story of American spaceflight, intertwining his achievements with those of spacefarers past. Bezos did today what someone else accomplished 60 years ago, but what he can do next, now that he’s back on Earth, sets his achievement apart. Given an opening for business, Bezos will exploit it to its most ambitious, sprawling end. There, at the edge of space, what possibilities did he see?

Watch CBS News

Jeff Bezos launching to space with Blue Origin, pursuing dream "step by step, ferociously"

By William Harwood

Updated on: July 19, 2021 / 7:32 PM EDT / CBS News

Nine days after being upstaged by Richard Branson , Amazon founder Jeff Bezos is finally ready for his own flight into history, blasting off Tuesday morning aboard a fully automated spacecraft he believes will usher in a new era of commercial passenger service .

Reaching a slightly higher altitude than Branson's winged spaceplane, Bezos' New Shepard capsule is equipped with the largest windows ever built into a spacecraft, offering its briefly weightless passengers truly out-of-this-world views of planet Earth more than 62 miles below.

More important for the safety-conscious, perhaps, the capsule features a flight-tested abort system designed to quickly propel the ship and its passengers away from a malfunctioning booster.

Like Branson before him, Bezos' presence aboard his New Shepard spacecraft is a public show of confidence in its readiness, after 15 successful but unpiloted test flights, to begin sub-orbital flights for wealthy space tourists and researchers flying at government or corporate expense.

"I'm excited," Bezos said Monday in an interview with Gayle King on "CBS This Morning." "People keep asking if I'm nervous. I'm not really nervous, I'm excited. I'm curious. I want to know what we're going to learn."

"You're not nervous?" King asked. "How are you not nervous?"

"We've been training, this vehicle is ready, this crew is ready, this team is amazing," Bezos replied. "We just feel really good about it."

How to watch the Blue Origin space launch

What: Jeff Bezos and three crewmates launch aboard Blue Origin's New Shepard spacecraft
Date: Tuesday, July 20, 2021
Time: Liftoff currently targeted for 9 a.m. EDT
Location: Blue Origin's Launch Site One, in the desert near Van Horn, Texas
On TV: Watch CBS News Special Report coverage on your local CBS station — coverage begins at 8:53 a.m. EDT
Online stream: Watch live on CBSN on your mobile or streaming device — coverage begins at 8:15 a.m. EDT

Branson might have been the first owner-operator to ride into space aboard his own rocketplane, but Bezos, through his company Blue Origin, is committed to a much loftier ambition: building a commercial empire across all major sectors of the space economy.

Not content to compete in the sub-orbital arena alone, Bezos also is challenging fellow billionaire and SpaceX founder Elon Musk , spending billions to fund development of more powerful New Glenn rockets to launch satellites and eventually people to Earth orbit and beyond.

"When it comes to space, I see it as my job," he said during the 2016 Code Conference. "I'm building infrastructure the hard way, I'm using my resources to put in place heavy lifting infrastructure so that the next generation of people can have a dynamic, entrepreneurial explosion into space.

"I want thousands of entrepreneurs doing amazing things in space. And to do that, we have to dramatically lower the cost of access to space."

As for risking his life for a 10-minute trip to space and back?

"You could argue about how risky it is if it's done right," Bezos said in a 2019 interview with Norah O'Donnell, anchor and managing editor of the CBS Evening News.

"With the technologies we have today, the suborbital mission could be made very safe. It can never be risk-free. The only thing that's really risk-free is staying in your bedroom."

But, he went on, "we take risks when we think it's worth it to us, when it's an experience you want to have, whether it's horseback riding or scuba diving or any of the many things that people take some risk for. So the question is: Is that experience worth it to you? And for me, it certainly is."

For Bezos, possibly the richest man in the world with a net worth of some $200 billion, that dream will become reality Tuesday when he blasts off aboard his New Shepard rocket. Joining him on the flight are his brother Mark Bezos, the aviation pioneer Wally Funk and Dutch student Oliver Daemen , an 18-year-old space enthusiast who paid an undisclosed sum for his seat.

Funk is a legendary professional pilot with more than 19,000 hours flying time who underwent grueling medical testing in the 1960s to prepare for spaceflight only to be barred from NASA's initially all-male astronaut corps by the Johnson administration.

"I didn't think that I would ever get to go up," Funk said in an Instagram video posted by Bezos. "They said, 'Wally, you're a girl, you can't do that.' I said, guess what? Doesn't matter what you are, you can still do it if you want to. And I like to do things that nobody's ever done."

Widely known and respected in aviation circles, Funk, at age 82, will be the oldest person to ever venture into space.

"But I feel like I'm 24!" she told King on "CBS This Morning."

Said Bezos: "Wally can outrun all of us. In the Mercury 13 (medical checks), when they tested her she was better than all the men, and I can guarantee you that's still true today."

"I love being here," Funk added. "This is the greatest team that I could ever be with, and it's gonna go, it's gonna happen. I've waited a long time, I've dreamt a long time to get to go up."

At the opposite end of the spectrum aboard the New Shepard is Daemen, who at 18 will be the youngest person to fly in space. He also will be Blue Origin's first paying passenger.

Daemen is flying in place of an auction winner who bid $28 million for the seat only to opt out because of a schedule conflict. Blue Origin says the auction winner, who wants to remain anonymous, will take off on a later flight instead.

Daemen's father Joes Daemen, founder of Somerset Capital Partners, participated in the auction but dropped out as the price soared to astronomical heights. Still, his bid apparently purchased a seat for his son, who was assigned a ride on Blue Origin's second commercial flight. The company moved him up to the July 20 flight when the winning bidder postponed.

"I am super excited to go to space and join them on the flight," Daemen said in a video posted on social media by a Dutch news site. "I've been dreaming about this all my life."

Branson won the commercial sub-orbital space race in 2018 when his company, Virgin Galactic, launched its first piloted test flight above 50 miles, the somewhat arbitrary "boundary" of space recognized by NASA and the Federal Aviation Administration.

While Branson's July 11 sub-orbital flight was Virgin's fourth carrying pilots, it was the first with a full six-person crew and the first with the company owner on board.

Branson announced his flight after Bezos had already selected his July 20 launch date, blindsiding the Amazon founder and grabbing headlines in the high-stakes battle to sell a product — civilian spaceflight — as a for-profit enterprise.

"I truly believe that space belongs to all of us," Branson said before his flight. "After more than 16 years of research, engineering and testing, Virgin Galactic stands at the vanguard of a new commercial space industry, which is set to open space to humankind and change the world for good."

He said he was "honored to help validate the journey our future astronauts will undertake and ensure we deliver the unique customer experience people expect from Virgin."

Bezos had no public comment on Virgin's sudden decision to schedule Branson's flight ahead of Blue Origin's. But Branson insisted he didn't view the competition as a "race."

"I've said this so many times, it really wasn't a race," he said after landing. "We're just delighted that everything went so fantastically well. We wish Jeff the absolute best and the people (who) are going up with him during his flight."

Blue Origin, in its mission statement , also denies being in a race and vows to pursue its goal of "building a road to space" according to its Latin motto, Gradatim Ferociter : "Step by step, ferociously."

Blue Origin's flight plan

Innovation takes many forms, and Virgin Galactic and Blue Origin chose very different routes to space.

Unlike Virgin Galactic's VSS Unity spaceplane, which is launched from a carrier jet and glides to a runway landing after a brief visit to the lower edge of space, Blue Origin's New Shepard is a much more traditional rocket and capsule.

In a little more than two minutes, the single-stage booster will propel the capsule and its crew straight up to an altitude of about 32 miles and a velocity of some 2,200 mph before main engine shutdown.

Less than 30 seconds later, at an altitude of about 45 miles, the crew capsule will be released to fly on its own.

While the reusable booster heads back to landing on a nearby pad, the crew capsule will continue upward on an unpowered, ballistic trajectory, reaching a maximum altitude of just above 62 miles three-and-a-half minutes after takeoff.

The Fédération Aéronautique Internationale (FAI), an international body based in Switzerland that certifies aerospace records, considers an altitude of 100 kilometers, or 62 miles — a level known as the Kármán Line — as the dividing line between the discernible atmosphere and space.

Virgin Galactic's spaceplane flies just above 50 miles, meeting the NASA and FAA standard for spaceflight but not the FAI's. Blue Origin's capsule exceeds both altitudes — a distinction the company does not hesitate to point out.

"Only 4% of the world recognizes a lower limit of 80 km or 50 miles as the beginning of space," Blue Origin, referring to the U.S. agencies, tweeted two days before Branson's flight. "New Shepard flies above both boundaries. One of the many benefits of flying with Blue Origin."

Only 4% of the world recognizes a lower limit of 80 km or 50 miles as the beginning of space. New Shepard flies above both boundaries. One of the many benefits of flying with Blue Origin. pic.twitter.com/4EAzMfCmYT — Blue Origin (@blueorigin) July 9, 2021

Approaching the top of the trajectory, Bezos and his crewmates will experience about three minutes of weightlessness, enough time to unstrap and float about the cabin while enjoying spectacular views of Earth through six windows more than a three feet tall and nearly two-and-a-half feet wide.

Then, plunging back into the lower atmosphere, the capsule will rapidly decelerate, subjecting the passengers to about four times the normal force of gravity, before three large parachutes unfurl, lowering the craft to a gentle touchdown a few miles from the launch pad.

From liftoff to landing, the entire flight lasts about 10 minutes.

It's not yet known how much Blue Origin will charge for the short ride to space, but tickets are expected to run higher than $200,000, or more than $20,000 per minute of flight.

Whatever the actual number, that astronomical cost has triggered harsh criticism in some quarters.

"Jeff Bezos' 11-minute thrill ride to space is an insult to the millions of people here on planet Earth who struggle every day to feed their families and make ends meet," Oxfam America said in a statement. "Many of them are the very Amazon workers who helped make Bezos the richest man in the world."

Both companies believe economies of scale will eventually drive prices down. Along with wealthy thrill-seekers, Virgin and Blue Origin expect to fly U.S. and international astronauts, civilian and government researchers and microgravity experiments.

But it's an open question whether the market can sustain two companies over the long haul or whether either could withstand the impact should a catastrophic failure occur.

Blue Origin

Bill Harwood has been covering the U.S. space program full-time since 1984, first as Cape Canaveral bureau chief for United Press International and now as a consultant for CBS News.

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Jeff Bezos Is Going To Space (For A Few Minutes)

Laurel Wamsley

Amazon founder and CEO Jeff Bezos announced he'll be on board a spaceflight next month in a capsule attached to a rocket made by his space exploration company Blue Origin. Bezos is seen here in 2019. Mark Ralston/AFP via Getty Images hide caption

Amazon founder and CEO Jeff Bezos announced he'll be on board a spaceflight next month in a capsule attached to a rocket made by his space exploration company Blue Origin. Bezos is seen here in 2019.

Jeff Bezos has already selected a hobby for his post-CEO life: space travel.

Just two weeks after he steps down as CEO of Amazon, Bezos will climb aboard a rocket made by his space exploration company Blue Origin.

"If you see the earth from space, it changes you. It changes your relationship with this planet, with humanity. It's one earth," Bezos said in a video posted to Instagram on Monday morning.

"Ever since I was five years old, I've dreamed of traveling to space."

View this post on Instagram A post shared by Jeff Bezos (@jeffbezos)

Blue Origin's rocket is called New Shepard, and it's reusable – the idea being that reusing rockets will lower the cost of going to space and make it more accessible. The pressurized capsule has space for six passengers. There are no pilots.

This will be the first time a crew will be aboard the New Shepard, in a capsule attached to the rocket.

And it won't just be Bezos: He invited his brother Mark, too.

Want to join the Bezos brothers?

You can bid on a seat on the flight in an auction that benefits Blue Origin's foundation, which has the mission of inspiring future generations to pursue careers in STEM. The current high bid is $2.8 million.

Jeff Bezos To Step Down As Amazon's CEO

The flight is scheduled for July 20 — the anniversary of the Apollo 11 moon landing in 1969. Bezos gives up his CEO title on July 5, when he'll pass the reins to Andy Jassy, who currently leads Amazon's cloud computing division.

Blue Origin's New Shepard rocket is seen here launching with a capsule attached in 2019. Blue Origin hide caption

Blue Origin's New Shepard rocket is seen here launching with a capsule attached in 2019.

Bezos ended his Instagram post with Blue Origin's Latin motto, gradatim ferociter – which the company translates as "step by step ferociously."

What does it mean, Bezos is going "to space"?

Technically, the Karman line is the altitude at which space begins – about 62 miles above sea level.

But Bezos won't be above that line for long. The flight is expected to last about 11 minutes, and only a small portion of that time is above the Karman line, according to a graphic of the flight trajectory on Blue Origin's website.

The New Shepard's journey is called suborbital flight, meaning the rocket isn't powerful enough to enter Earth's orbit.

The Two-Way

Used rocket is a new breakthrough for blue origin's space plan, a giant leap for billionairekind.

Bezos isn't alone in spending some of his enormous wealth on space exploration.

Elon Musk's SpaceX Crew Dragon now regularly carries astronauts to and from the International Space Station. And in May, a test flight by Richard Branson's Virgin Galactic reached an altitude of 55 miles, marking its third human spaceflight.

But neither Musk nor Branson has traveled to space yet in their companies' aircrafts.

In 2014, two pilots were aboard a Virgin Galactic test flight that crashed in California's Mojave Desert, killing one of them. An investigation found that pilot error and design problems were to blame in the crash.

A test dummy rides on board the New Shepard crew capsule in January. Blue Origin hide caption

A test dummy rides on board the New Shepard crew capsule in January.

Four employees of Virgin Galactic are expected to join the company's next test flight, and Branson is to go on the flight after that, the BBC reported . Branson said last month that he is actively preparing his body for spaceflight.

Virgin Galactic's design looks light-years different from Blue Origin's New Shepard. Virgin's craft resembles an airplane, while the New Shepard is an actual rocket.

But Bezos says Virgin Galactic's flights don't really reach space.

"One of the issues that Virgin Galactic will have to address, eventually, is that they are not flying above the Karman Line, not yet," Bezos told SpaceNews in 2019. "I think one of the things they will have to figure out how to get above the Karman Line."

NPR science correspondent Geoff Brumfiel contributed to this report.

blue origin

NEW GLENN GOES VERTICAL

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When Can I Buy a Ticket to Space? A Guide for Non-Billionaires.

We’re at the dawn of a new era for space exploration, with thrill-seeking civilians boldly going where no tourist has gone before. Over 60 years after Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin became the first person in space, a handful of companies are planning to take non-astronauts with sufficiently massive bank accounts on a galactic tour: Tesla Founder Elon Musk’s SpaceX, Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos’s Blue Origin , and Richard Branson’s Virgin Galactic.

Here’s everything you need to know about the rise of space tourism, from which billionaires are leaving Earth imminently to when the rest of us might be able to join them.

What’s the history of civilian space travel?

The initial effort to send a civilian into space ended in disaster: In 1986, Christa McAuliffe was set to be the first civilian and teacher in space, but she and six crewmates were tragically killed during the explosion of Space Shuttle Challenger.

After that, NASA largely forbade the practice. But Russia’s then-struggling space program stepped up to the plate. On April 28, 2001, Dennis Tito paid a whopping $20 million for a seat on a Russian Soyuz rocket, becoming the first civilian to visit the International Space Station – humanity’s home away from home. According to Space.com , just seven space tourists have followed in his footsteps in the last 20 years, via Russia’s Space Agency. But the year ahead should be a busy one for the nascent industry, with more and more civilians reaching for the stars.

Who’s heading to space next?

The competition between the major players in the billionaire space race heated up when Bezos announced that he would jet off to the brink of space and back on July 20, the anniversary of the Apollo 11 moon landing. On July 1 – just hours after Bezos announced that in addition to his brother, he’d be joined on the flight by aviation pioneer Wally Funk – Richard Branson revealed that he would beat the Amazon founder into space by nine days. Branson will blast off on Virgin Galactic’s VSS Unity rocketplane on July 11.

Elon Musk’s SpaceX is planning what it’s billing as “the world’s first all-civilian space flight” in late 2021. The multiday flight into low Earth orbit, dubbed “Inspiration4” and funded by billionaire entrepreneur Jared Isaacman, aims to raise awareness for St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital and begin “a new era for human spaceflight and exploration.” The crew includes Isaacman, childhood cancer survivor Hayley Arceneaux, plus two others. It’s currently scheduled to launch “no earlier than September 15, 2021,” per the mission’s website.

SpaceX aims to keep the momentum going by partnering with Houston-based Axiom Space to send more everyday people into space using its Crew Dragon spacecraft, this time going to the International Space Station. Axiom’s first private ISS mission is set to launch “no earlier than January 2022.” Its second mission is the focus of the Discovery Channel reality-TV show Who Wants to Be an Astronaut? , in which contestants take on extreme challenges for a chance at a ticket to the ISS. Axiom Space plans to eventually host civilian space station jaunts every six months.

What does this cost?

Unsurprisingly, going to space comes with a hefty price tag. Axiom passengers will pay the low, low price of $55 million for the flight and a stay on the ISS. Meanwhile, Virgin Galactic’s suborbital trips — where passengers can experience weightlessness for several minutes before falling back to Earth — are far more reasonable in cost, at $250,000 . Six hundred people have already made reservations for 90-minute flights on Branson’s SpaceShipTwo, Reuters reports. And while Bezos’s Blue Origin hasn’t announced official prices, an auction for a seat to join him and his brother on his brief sojourn to space in July went for a cool $28 million .

How safe is it?

Hollywood isn’t exaggerating: Going to space is inherently dangerous. Congress agreed in 2004 to largely let the space-tourism industry self-regulate, so there are few laws and restrictions on taking civilians into space.

“One way that the government could have gone was to say, ‘Hey, we’re going to certify the spacecraft, make sure that they’re safe and give them the stamp of approval,’” Mark Sundahl, an expert at space law at Cleveland State University, told Discover magazine . “But they didn’t go that way. Instead, they said ‘We’re going to prove we’re protecting space tourists by just requiring the companies to tell them that they may die, and then it’s up to them to make a decision if they want to take that risk or not.’ That’s the approach that the government took, and it is somewhat controversial.”

What other types of space tourism are in the works?

Strapping in on a rocket and blasting off into space isn’t the only type of travel available for those eager to leave this planet. Human space flight company Space Perspective is planning to fly passengers to the edge of space in a high-tech version of a hot-air balloon, “the size of a football stadium,” lifted by hydrogen. Flights are planned for early 2024, with tickets priced firmly at $125,000 per person.

For another out-of-this-world vacation, check out the company Orbital Assembly Corporation , which plans to open a luxury space hotel in 2027. The hotel, named Voyager Station, looks almost like a Ferris wheel floating in orbit and features a restaurant, gym, and Earth-viewing lounges and bars. A three-and-a-half-day stay is expected to cost up to $5 million, the Washington Post reports.

Are other celebrities planning to explore space?

A slew of stars have already bought their tickets to space with Virgin Galactic, among them Justin Bieber, Ashton Kusher, and Leonardo DiCaprio, according to the New York Daily News . Last year, Actor Tom Cruise and NASA announced their own collaboration to make a movie on the International Space Station.

When can the average person do this?

Once again, the biggest barrier to space is the price tag. But air travel was also once prohibitively expensive, with a one-way ticket across the country costing more than half the price of a new car ; one can expect similar price reductions in space travel. For now, partaking in a sweepstakes or reality show might be the best bet for those with tiny bank accounts and big dreams of taking to the stars.

This post was updated after Branson announced he would head to space on July 11.

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Bezos resuming Blue Origin spaceflights with the man selected to be the nation's first Black astronaut — in 1961

Blue Origin is prepping to embark on its 25th mission to space.
Among the 6 crew members will be 90-year-old Ed Dwight.
JFK selected Dwight to be trained as the first Black astronaut in 1961.

Six decades ago, John F. Kennedy's White House chose Ed Dwight to train and become the nation's first Black astronaut.

Dwight, with some reticence, accepted the calling. But the young Kansas City native at the time was ultimately passed over for the role.

Now, at the age of 90, Dwight is getting his due.

Jeff Bezos's Blue Origin announced on Thursday its six-member crew that will embark on the company's 25th mission to space aboard the New Shepard rocket .

The crew includes Mason Angel, founder of Industrious Ventures VC firm; Sylvain Chiron, the founder of Brasserie Mont Blanc brewing company; Kenneth Hess, a pioneering software engineer; Carol Schaller, a retired CPA; Gopi Thotakura, a pilot; and Dwight, who will be getting the opportunity to fly to space more than 60 years after he was first selected to be trained as an astronaut.

Jeff Bezos’s Ambitious Orbital Reef Space Station Clears Essential Milestones: A ScienceAlert Update

T he future of the International Space Station (ISS) is limited, and NASA has begun investment into its successors. Orbital Reef, a space station project co-developed by Jeff Bezos ‘s Blue Origin and Sierra Space, appears to be a leading contender, having made significant progress recently.

It has been reported by NASA on Wednesday that Orbital Reef passed critical technology development milestones, which included a recycling system designed to convert astronauts’ urine into drinkable water.

Angela Hart, the program manager for NASA’s Commercial Low Earth Orbit Development Program, emphasized the importance of these milestones, as they are crucial for ensuring that a commercial space station can sustain human life.

Throughout the testing process, the Orbital Reef’s regenerative system demonstrated capabilities in air purification, urine recovery, and water tank management.

NASA’s ISS follows a similar method for recycling water and oxygen generated from human activities, including converting urine into potable water, a process benefiting the agency by reducing launch costs and saving money.

Emergence of Blue Origin’s Space Station

NASA’s funding of Blue Origin and Sierra Space to the tune of US$172 million is in line with their objective to see the development of commercially operated American space stations in low-Earth orbit to succeed the ISS.

With these new stations, NASA envisions continued astronaut deployments and commercial opportunities, including space tourism.

NASA is transitioning the responsibility of maintaining low-Earth orbits to commercial entities to reallocate funds towards more ambitious projects like the Artemis missions aimed at establishing a human presence on the moon, lunar orbit, and possibly, a Mars mission in the future.

The Decline of the ISS

The aging ISS is contending with issues such as cracks in Russian modules and air leaks. The commitment by the Biden administration to maintain the ISS until 2030 will hopefully allow time for the transition to Orbital Reef or equivalent commercial space stations.

Although ticket prices for a trip to Orbital Reef are not yet disclosed, for budgetary reference, short suborbital trips with Blue Origin’s New Shepard are currently in the multimillions.

This article draws upon information originally published by Business Insider .

Orbital Reef is a proposed commercial space station developed as a collaboration between Jeff Bezos’s Blue Origin and Sierra Space.

Orbital Reef has successfully passed tests on its regenerative system, which included air purification and urine recycling into drinkable water.

NASA is funding commercial space stations to shift the burden of low-Earth orbit operations onto private companies, enabling NASA to focus on deeper space exploration ventures, such as missions to the moon and Mars.

NASA awarded Blue Origin and Sierra Space a combined sum of US$172 million for the development of the space station.

The ISS recycles water through a system that purifies water from various human activities, including urine, which is turned into drinkable water. This reduces launch costs for the agency.

The ISS is set to be operational until at least 2030, after which it will potentially be replaced by commercial space stations like Orbital Reef.

The progress of Jeff Bezos’s Blue Origin and Sierra Space’s Orbital Reef represents a significant stride in the development of the next generation of space stations. As NASA shifts its focus towards ambitious projects such as Artemis, Orbital Reef’s completion of key technological milestones showcases the potential for commercial entities to take up the mantle of low-Earth orbit operations. With the ISS approaching the end of its lifespan, the era of commercial space stations that cater to both professional astronauts and space tourists is drawing nearer, signaling a new age in space exploration and travel.

NASA is struggling to compete with Bezos, Musk and their 6-figure salaries for starting aerospace engineers at Blue Origin and SpaceX

SpaceX and Blue Origin LLC are competing to launch satellites and take humans to the moon. They are also paying big salaries to hire so many young and tireless engineers that old-line aerospace employers like Boeing Co. and NASA are finding it harder to fill positions.

Most aerospace students really covet jobs at SpaceX and Blue Origin, recruiters say. The private firms are run by two of the three richest men in the world, Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos, who ultimately imagine people living and working in Earth’s orbit and on the surface of Mars .

Their private firms also often pay more than established space operations. SpaceX is currently listing starting aerospace engineer positions at $95,000 to $115,000 a year.

NASA, which follows the federal government’s General Schedule pay scales, offers starting salaries along a range that starts at $54,557 for engineers with bachelor’s degrees, $66,731 for master’s degrees and $73,038 for doctorates at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

Helping SpaceX or Blue Origin build towering rockets, orbiting labs or moon landers can also mean serving at the whims of mercurial executives. California has accused SpaceX of routinely underpaying women and minority workers. And jobs at the startups can mean laboring on projects that never see the light of day or sitting at a cubicle for 80 or 90 hours a week.

“You’re doing this cool thing,” said Griffin Rahn, who is earning his aerospace master’s degree at Georgia Tech. “You’re also going to be like really worked to death.”

Nonetheless, graduates from elite colleges have been jumping at the chance to contribute to the ambitious plans of the startups, and each company is hiring rapidly. Blue Origin, with more than 10,000 workers , had more than 1,500 job postings in mid-March. SpaceX is estimated to have more than 11,000 workers and had over 1,100 openings .

This has intensified recruiting drives for aerospace majors at colleges like the Georgia Institute of Technology, Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the University of Michigan.

William Putaansuu, an aerospace engineering undergraduate at the Georgia Institute of Technology, said that Blue Origin and SpaceX “know people want to go work for them.”

The sharp growth of space projects mean aerospace engineer jobs are projected to grow 6% from 2022 to 2032, twice as fast as the average overall US job growth rate, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Over the next five years, the booming global space economy is expected to grow roughly 40% to some $770 billion.

“Twenty years ago, you would not have characterized the space business as fast moving,” said Daniel Hastings, professor of aeronautics and astronautics at MIT. The speed is “what attracts the younger people these days.”

The sharp differences between the space startups and old-school operations can also be seen in their different college recruiting strategies. Established firms with government space contracts, like Boeing and Lockheed Martin Corp. set up booths at career fairs to explain their programs and benefits. SpaceX and Blue Origin recruiters go right to campus robotics teams or rocket clubs.

Rahn, who interned at NASA with the Jacob’s Space Exploration Group, said that his interview there focused on his resume to determine his qualifications and the questions were more personality based.

His interviews at Blue Origin and Relativity Space Inc. went through multiple rounds, mostly filled with technical questions with the goal of learning what they will “get out of you if they hire you,” he said.

Students say they know that the demands at the private space firms can take its toll on mental and physical health. This often prompts workers to take another look at more established space operations.

The turnover rate at SpaceX and Blue Origin “is insanely high,” Putaansuu said. “Not because they don’t necessarily like working for that company, but there are so many offers out there.”

Spokespeople for SpaceX and Blue Origin did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Ann Richmond, deputy director of talent services at NASA, said that as private sector space companies grow, NASA has “a little bit of a tougher time competing with them salary-wise,” though she and recruiters for firms like Boeing say they offer employees a better work-life balance.

Richmond said that people who have come to NASA after working for private firms “shared that they felt a little burnout.”

She added that NASA’s federal retirement and health benefits as well as opportunities for promotion draw employees who are “playing the long game.”

“We see some very savvy applicants that are really looking at the total compensation package,” Richmond said.

NASA views space startups as partners and wants to benefit from their efforts and experiences. “It’s more and more common that we have people moving back and forth between NASA and SpaceX and NASA and Blue Origin,” Richmond said.

Boeing also pitches young engineers on a more stable work-life balance. Beyond its besieged commercial aircraft division, the company can offer career paths spanning a range of other high-profile programs, from fighter jets to missiles to spacecraft. Recent graduates joining Boeing can work on products currently in use, rather than futuristic ideas locked in long and potentially dead-end development cycles.

While NASA and its contractors don’t have the same buzz that Blue Origin and SpaceX do, they do have storied histories stretching back 65 years that include some of humankind’s greatest achievements in space.

But many aerospace majors remain more drawn to buzz than benefits and legacies.

“I think a lot of people when they’re looking for jobs, they’re not nearly focused enough on what an actual position is,” Rahn said. “They’re much more worried about the place that they’re at.”

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Jeff Bezos and Billionaire Bunker, Florida: World's richest buys 3rd home in less than a year

Founder of amazon and blue origin lives in indian creek village aka billionaire bunker near miami beach, florida..

Indian Creek Village, a 300-acre island in Biscayne Bay with about 30 homes, ultra-exclusive country club & golf course, is one of the richest neighborhoods in the U.S.

Jeff Bezos really likes Florida.

The billionaire, Amazon founder and apparent richest person on the planet bought another home in Florida's Billionaire Bunker − his third in nine months, according to reports. Here's what we know.

Amazon founder Jeff Bezos left Seattle for Miami and bought 3 homes in Billionaire Bunker in Florida

Owning a home in Indian Creek Village, Florida, aka Billionaire Bunker is so luxe. Owning three homes there? That's rich.

In an April 2, 2024, Seattle Times story , Bezos "agreed to pay about $90 million in an off-market transaction for a six-bedroom home in the Miami-area enclave, according to people with knowledge of the matter. Bezos plans to live there while he tears down the other houses he bought on the island, said one of the people."

The newspaper states a representative for Bezos declined to comment, and property records show the house was last sold in 1998, for $2.5 million.

In October 2023, the billionaire and Blue Origin CEO reportedly paid $79 million for a seven-bedroom, 14-bathroom mansion set on 1.84 acres in Indian Creek Village , according to Bloomberg. The ultra luxe, ultra private neighborhood is near Miami Beach and earned the nickname Billionaire Bunker for its residents.

In August 2023, Bezos reportedly bought a waterfront estate there for $68 million. He has famous neighbors, too: Tom Brady, Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner, and Spanish singer Julio Iglesias.

Indian Creek Village, a 300-acre island in Biscayne Bay with about 30 homes, an ultra-exclusive country club and golf course, is one of the richest neighborhoods in the United States.

Where does Jeff Bezos live? Jeff Bezos left Seattle, Washington, for Billionaire Bunker, Florida

Buying two homes in one of the richest neighborhoods around is viral material, but Bezos' announcement of leaving his beloved Seattle, Washington, for South Florida caused a stir online. Bezos traded West Coast life for East Coast living.

In November 2023, Bezos announced the news via a throwback video on Instagram, showing him inside his Seattle garage where he founded Amazon, the multinational tech trillion-dollar company in 1994.

"This is my desk here... this is the fax machine," Bezos, 59, said in the video while giving a tour of his "office." "That’s my dad behind the camera in this video," he wrote in the post.

Aside from the homes in Billionaire Bunker, Bezos has many ties to Florida . He graduated from Palmetto High School in Miami. His company, Blue Origin, has a facility in Cape Canaveral next to Kennedy Space Center and SpaceX. The owner of the Washington Post reportedly said he was moving to Miami to be closer to his parents and his Blue Origin operations.

"I've lived in Seattle longer than I have lived anywhere else," Bezos wrote in the social media post. "As exciting as the move is, it's an emotional decision for me. Seattle, you will always have a place in my heart."

Who is Jeff Bezos?

Jeff Bezos is the founder of Amazon and has his own aerospace company, Blue Origin. Blue Origin has a site on the Space Coast, visible from Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex.

For years, Bezos has been included on several "world's richest" lists (see below).

In April 2023, Forbes ranked billionaire Jeff Bezos as the "top tech mogul" and ranked him the third richest man in the world with an estimated fortune of $180 billion. In April 2022, Forbes reported Bezos was the second richest man in the world with an estimated fortune of $171 billion. In 2021, Forbes ranked the Amazon founder No. 1 as the world's richest man.

Who are the richest people in the world?

In March 2024, Bloomberg's Billionaires Index, which is updated daily, showed Jeff Bezos reclaimed the title of the world's richest man. As of April 2024, here's a list of the Top 5 richest people on the planet, according to Bloomberg's Billionaires Index:

5. Microsoft founder Bill Gates is reportedly worth $150 billion.
4. Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg is the fourth-richest person in the world, with a net worth of $179 billion.
3. French businessman Bernard Arnault, the man behind luxury goods company LVMH, has a net worth reportedly of $197 billion. He's the only foreign businessman in the Top 10 of Bloomberg's Billionaires Index.
2. Elon Musk, founder of SpaceX and chief of social media site X (formerly known as Twitter), has a net worth of $198 billion. The Tesla founder held the top spot for almost 10 months.
1. Amazon founder Jeff Bezos has a net worth of $200 billion.

Who is the richest woman in the world?

In March 2024, Bloomberg's Billionaires Index showed a list of billionaires dominated by men. The title of "richest woman in the world" goes to Francoise Bettencourt Meyers, who ranks No. 15 on the overall list. Bettencourt Meyers is the granddaughter of Eugne Schueller, who founded L'Oreal.

Contributing: Victoria Hernandez and Camille Fine, USA TODAY; Alexandra Clough, Palm Beach Post; AP

Sangalang is a lead producer and trending reporter for USA TODAY Network-Florida. Follow her on Twitter or Instagram at @byjensangalang . Support local journalism. Consider subscribing to a Florida newspaper .

Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, among world's richest, bought another Billionaire Bunker home

Jeff bezos, owner of the washington post, has many ties to florida. he graduated from palmetto high in miami & his company blue origin has a facility in cape canaveral..

Amazon founder Jeff Bezos bought his third home in Florida's ultra exclusive Billionaire Bunker − in less than a year.

Bezos purchased the home for about $90 million in an off-market transaction, according to Bloomberg . It was the third mansion the Washington Post owner has purchased on the man-made barrier island in Biscayne Bay near Miami Beach.

Bezos will live in the newly purchased home, which last sold in 1998 for $2.5 million, while the other two homes he purchased are torn down, according to Bloomberg.

The mansion Bezos purchased is reported to have been owned by Javier Holtz, who is listed as the vice-mayor of the municipality on the Indian Creek Village website . Billionaire Bunker is the nickname for Indian Creek Village − and fitting for one of the world's richest people.

Bezos has many ties to Florida . He graduated from Palmetto High School in Miami. His company, Blue Origin, has a facility in Cape Canaveral next to Kennedy Space Center and SpaceX.

Here's what we know about the Blue Origin founder's Billionaire Bunker home in Florida.

Where does Jeff Bezos live? Amazon founder and Tom Brady are neighbors

Jeff Bezos and Tom Brady , two of the world’s most recognized men, became neighbors in summer 2023 when the Amazon founder purchased a home in Indian Creek Village. Brady, the GOAT of football, has been a resident there since 2020.

In June 2023 , Bezos paid $68 million for the three-bedroom, waterfront home, Fortune magazine and Bloomberg reported. MTM Star International was listed on Miami-Dade property records as the previous owner, according to AP. County records show the property previously sold for $1.4 million in 1982. The home had 9,300 square feet and a pool.

In November 2023, Bezos purchased a second home in Indian Creek Village for $79 million.

The 23,000-square-foot mansion at 12 Indian Creek Island Road, situated on 80,000 square feet of land, featured a wood-paneled library, movie theater, wine cellar, wet bar and cabana house, according to a Facebook post by Dina Goldentayer Real Estate .

There were 41 waterfront properties on the island as of 2017, according to the municipality's website.

What is Indian Creek Village in Florida like?

In addition to the mansions there, residents have access to the Indian Creek Country Club. The area has its own law enforcement, Indian Creek Village Police Department.

On May 27, 2023, David Chen went out on a "curiosity paddle" from nearby Oleta River State Park and posted his kayaking adventure on Facebook. His photos and video clips give an exclusive view to one of the world's most famous neighborhoods. He "paddled by Beer Can Island (Sandspur Island) and Kayaking Cove island before crossing the very busy boat channel to Indian Creek," he said in his post.

"The security appears to be tight around the island," Chen said on his social post. "As I paddled around it, a police boat came cruising past twice."

Which celebrities live in Indian Creek Village, Florida, or Billionaire Bunker?

A former first daughter of the United States calls Indian Creek home. Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner paid $32 million for an empty waterfront lot on the island from singer Julio Iglesias, Enrique Iglesias' father, according to Business Insider.

Billionaire Norman Braman, an American car dealer and former owner of the Philadelphia Eagles, owns a home there, according to David Chen. Other notable residents, he added, include late Dolphins coach Don Shula and financier Carl Icahn.

Adriana Lima, a fellow Brazilian supermodel and former Victoria's Secret Angel like Gisele Bundchen, previously lived in Indian Creek. News reports show Lima sold her mansion for $40 million.

Contributing: James Powel, Victoria Hernandez and Camille Fine, USA TODAY; AP

Sangalang is a lead digital producer for USA TODAY Network-Florida. Follow her on Twitter or Instagram at @byjensangalang . Support local journalism. Consider subscribing to a Florida newspaper .

A Billionaire Bunker takeover? Bezos buys another mansion on a Miami island

Madeleine Marr Miami Herald (TNS)

Is Jeff Bezos taking over Indian Creek Village?

The Amazon founder just scooped up another property on the residential island known as Billionaire Bunker, Bloomberg first reported.

Bezos reportedly paid $90 million for the two-story, 12,135-square-foot, six-bedroom, 10-bathroom home. It’s on the island near Surfside and Miami Beach that’s accessible by a 24-hour guarded bridge and anchored by a golf course. ?

$90 mill? That’s just a drop for Bezos, who as of Tuesday, is worth $194 billion, making him the third richest person in the world , according to Forbes.

The transaction for the Indian Creek Island home was off-market, Bloomberg reports, meaning it was sold under the radar and the owner didn’t want the purchase made public.

The Miami Herald reached out to local real estate agents familiar with Billionaire Bunker and they confirmed that Bezos was the buyer.

According to Miami-Dade property records, the house was built in 1956 and expanded in 1986 and 2014.

The seller, ex Marquis Bank CEO Javier Holtz, paid just $2.5 million for the house in 1998, a sign of just how piping hot our real estate scene has become.

“This is not a trend; it’s a continued path for the Miami top-end market,” said Dina Goldentayer with Douglas Elliman. “Attracting significant investment from the wealthiest people from around the world who want to own a piece, or three, of the best city in the America is par for the course.”

Since the pandemic, Indian Creek, an incorporated municipality, has seen a major influx of affluent out-of-towners such as Tom Brady, Cindy Crawford and Ivanka Trump.

That makes sense for them to flock to a secluded paradise. With just around 100 residents and 40 homes, the island has its own mayor and police force, which patrols by land and sea. Paparazzi need the most high-powered of zoom lenses to snag even the fuzziest of snaps. That was likely a selling point for Bezos, who is engaged to former TV reporter Lauren Sanchez, 53.

The Miami Palmetto Senior High alum already shelled out a total of $147 million for two mansions on the island last summer.

In August, the Internet mogul paid $68 million for a 9,259-square-foot, three bedroom, three bathroom place. Two months later, he dropped another $79 million for the seven-bedroom, 14-bathroom estate next door.

Last November, the-60-year-old mogul, who also owns the Washingon Post, announced he was moving back home to South Florida after three decades in Seattle.

The tech titan cited personal reasons, such as wanting to be closer to his Blue Origins space company in Cape Canaveral, as well as to his parents, who live in Coral Gables.

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Plus, he added: “Lauren and I love Miami.”

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IMAGES

Jeff Bezos’ space venture nears maximum dynamic pressure
Jeff Bezos' Blue Origin sets date for first astronaut crew liftoff
Jeff Bezos launches into space in landmark flight
Watch Jeff Bezos' Blue Origin launch its first New Shepard space crew
Jeff Bezos, World's Richest Man, Travels to space in his own Rocket
Watch Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin Launch First Space Mission of 2020:Video

COMMENTS

Jeff Bezos Successfully Launches Himself to Space
By Jeffrey Kluger. July 20, 2021 11:40 AM EDT. G ive Jeff Bezos this: When he builds a rocket, he rides the rocket, strapping his own mortal hide into a seat and test-flying what he's developed ...
Jeff Bezos Travels To Space And Back On Blue Origin Rocket : NPR
Liftoff! Jeff Bezos And 3 Crewmates Travel To Space And Back In Under 15 Minutes. Blue Origin's New Shepard rocket lifts off from the launch pad Tuesday morning in Van Horn, Texas. Wearing a ...
Jeff Bezos and Blue Origin Crew Launches to Space
VAN HORN, Texas — Jeff Bezos, the richest human in the world, went to space on Tuesday. It was a brief jaunt — rising more than 65 miles into the sky above West Texas — in a spacecraft that ...
Jeff Bezos' Completes His Blue Origin Flight To Space : NPR
A mural of Blue Origin founder Jeff Bezos adorns the side of a building in Van Horn, Texas, over the weekend. Bezos launched into space Tuesday morning from Blue Origin's facilities in the town ...
Blue Origin's first human launch with Jeff Bezos: When to ...
The mission, which Blue Origin has dubbed the First Human Flight, will be the 16th flight of New Shepard, but the first with astronauts aboard. Bezos and three other civilians will launch from the ...
'Best Day Ever': Highlights From Bezos and Blue Origin Crew's Short
Jeff Bezos, the richest human in the world, went to space on Tuesday.It was a brief jaunt — rising 60-some miles into the sky above West Texas — in a spacecraft that was built by Mr. Bezos ...
Jeff Bezos launches to space aboard New Shepard rocket ship
Science editor, BBC News website. Billionaire Jeff Bezos has made a short journey to space, in the first crewed flight of his rocket ship, New Shepard. He was accompanied by Mark Bezos, his ...
July 20, 2021: Jeff Bezos space flight news
Richard Branson and crew aboard the VSS Unity on July 11, 2021. Virgin Galactic. Amazon founder Jeff Bezos will be launching himself to space today aboard the New Shepard, a rocket ship created by ...
Jeff Bezos reaches space—a small step toward big spaceflight dreams
The first crewed New Shepard launch carried Bezos, his brother, and the oldest and youngest people to ever go to space: 82-year-old aviation pioneer Wally Funk, and an 18-year-old Dutch student.
Jeff Bezos launches into space on Blue Origin's 1st astronaut flight
Blue Origin's New Shepard lifts-off from the launch pad carrying Jeff Bezos along with his brother Mark Bezos, 18-year-old Oliver Daemen, and 82-year-old Wally Funk on July 20, 2021 in Van Horn ...
Jeff Bezos Will Fly Aboard Blue Origin's First Human Trip to Space
Nick Cote for The New York Times. In the battle of billionaires with rocket companies, Jeff Bezos will finally beat Elon Musk. Mr. Bezos, the founder of Amazon, said on Monday that he would take a ...
Jeff Bezos Really Flew to Space
July 20, 2021. Updated at 1:45 p.m. ET on July 20, 2021. VAN HORN, Texas—Jeff Bezos really flew to space. This morning, the richest person on Earth boarded a reusable rocket he dreamed up and ...
Jeff Bezos launching to space with Blue Origin, pursuing dream "step by
Jeff Bezos set to blast off on historic space flight 01:55. Nine days after being upstaged by Richard Branson, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos is finally ready for his own flight into history, blasting ...
Jeff Bezos Is Going To Space (For A Few Minutes) : NPR
Amazon founder and CEO Jeff Bezos announced he'll be on board a spaceflight next month in a capsule attached to a rocket made by his space exploration company Blue Origin. Bezos is seen here in 2019.
Jeff Bezos' Blue Origin to resume space tourism after a long hiatus
Jeff Bezos' company started carrying passengers to suborbital space in 2021. Bezos himself flew on the first crewed flight of New Shepard in July that year.. But in September 2022, New Shepard ...
Jeff Bezos: Blue Origin space tourist sales approaching $100 million
Jeff Bezos' space company Blue Origin has sold nearly $100 million worth of tickets for future passenger flights, the billionaire founder said Tuesday. "The demand is very, very high," Bezos ...
Jeff Bezos is flying to space. Here's everything you need to know
Jeff Bezos, the richest man on the planet, is preparing for a rocket-powered, 11-minute 2,300-mph excursion to the edge of space. Here's what you need to know. CNN values your feedback
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Blue Origin was founded by Jeff Bezos with the vision of enabling a future where millions of people are living and working in space for the benefit of Earth. Skip navigation. Vehicles New Shepard New Glenn Blue Moon Blue Ring Engines Destinations About About Blue Sustainability News Gallery ...
Civilian Space Flight: Cost, Risks, & When We Can Join Bezos
Richard Branson and Jeff Bezos are headed to space in July. Here's a guide to the rise of space tourism, including the price, the danger, and when the average person can head to the stars.
Bezos resuming Blue Origin spaceflights with the man selected to be the
Ed Dwight, a former Air Force pilot who was the first Black astronaut candidate, will be a part of Blue Origin's 25th mission to space aboard the New Shepard rocket. Robby Klein/Contour by Getty ...
Jeff Bezos tours Relativity Space headquarters with Tim Ellis
Jeff Bezos stopped by the gleaming new "factory of the future" of Relativity Space on Friday, a person familiar with the visit told CNBC, for a tour of the Long Beach, California facility with ...
Everything you need to know about space tourism
Less than 10 days later, on July 20, the world's richest man, Amazon's Jeff Bezos, briefly entered space on Blue Origin, his private space company's reusable rocket. He was joined by his ...
Jeff Bezos's Ambitious Orbital Reef Space Station Clears ...
The future of the International Space Station (ISS) is limited, and NASA has begun investment into its successors. Orbital Reef, a space station project co-developed by Jeff Bezos's Blue Origin ...
NASA is struggling to compete with Bezos, Musk and their 6-figure
Blue Origin's New Shepard crew including Jeff Bezos arrive for a press conference after flying into space in the Blue Origin New Shepard rocket on July 20, 2021 in Van Horn, Texas.
Amazon, Blue Origin founder Jeff Bezos buys 3rd home near Miami Beach
Jeff Bezos is the founder of Amazon and has his own aerospace company, Blue Origin. Blue Origin has a site on the Space Coast, visible from Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex.
Jeff Bezos is going to space on first crewed flight of rocket
Jeff Bezos will be flying to space on the first crewed flight of the New Shepard, the rocket ship made by his space company, Blue Origin. The flight is scheduled for July 20th, just 15 days after ...
Lauren Sánchez and Jeff Bezos embrace family time in Japan
Celebrity Families Lauren Sánchez and Jeff Bezos embrace family time in Japan's cherry blossom wonderland Sánchez's trip was a sightseeing tour and an opportunity to strengthen the bond with ...
Where does Jeff Bezos live? Indian Creek Village near Miami, Florida
Amazon founder Jeff Bezos bought his third home in Florida's ultra exclusive Billionaire Bunker − in less than a year. Bezos purchased the home for about $90 million in an off-market transaction ...
A Billionaire Bunker takeover? Bezos buys another mansion on a Miami island
Bezos reportedly paid $90 million for the two-story, 12,135-square-foot, six-bedroom, 10-bathroom home. Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, shown in this 2022 photo, just scooped up another property on the ...