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Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin Completes First Crewed Flight To Space

Amazon founder and former CEO, Jeff Bezos, has made it to space and back on Tuesday in a historic flight. 

Bezos took the trip aboard a spacecraft of the aerospace manufacturing and space flight service company he founded, Blue Origin. 

Along with Bezos, other crew members on the flight were his brother Mark, Wally Funk, and Oliver Daemen. 

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The flight made history for a number of reasons. For example; at 82 years old, Funk becomes the oldest ever astronaut, while 18-year-old Daemen is now the youngest. 

Another reason is that while Richard Branson’s Virgin Galactic made it to space first (July 11, 2021) going by NASA’s definition, Blue Origin was the only one that crossed the Karman line. 

The Karman line is an attempt to define a boundary between the earth’s atmosphere and the outer space. It is defined to be 100 kilometers above Earth’s sea level. NASA however, uses 80 kilometers above sea level as the cut-off point. 

Branson’s Virgin Galactic flight reached a height of 86km while Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin flight reached a maximum altitude of 107km. 

A New Shepard rocket from Bezos’ Blue Origin lifted off from the desert in Van Horn, Texas, at 8:11 a.m. CT, blazing up more than 62 miles through the clear blue sky. 

Toward the peak of the flight, the dome-like cabin carrying the crew detached from the rocket booster as planned, hovering above the Earth.

The reusable rocket booster made it back to the ground with a controlled soft landing while the cabin floated down to the ground with a trio of huge parachutes. In all, the trip took just over 10 minutes.

The event was live-streamed but the scene inside the cabin was not shown during the Livestream. 

Viewers could, however, hear the audio inside as the astronauts cheered, marveled at the views, and shared some candy in zero gravity.

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