By Jeph Ajobaju, Chief Copy Editor
Jeff Bezos, the world’s richest man, will jet off to space on July 20 with a boy aged 18, the latest recruit, along with a woman aged 82, in a billionaires’ race of adventure featuring Richard Branson and Elon Musk, the world’s second richest dude.
The crew will fly on New Shepard rocket built by Blue Origin owned by Bezos.
Branson was the first to run the race on board his Virgin Galactic rocket on July 11 along with five crewmates, beating out Bezos – but some, including Bezos, contend that Branson did not win.
They argue that Branson and his crewmates only reached the boundary of space at 50 miles (80 kilometres) whereas space begins 62 miles (100km) up at the internationally recognised Kármán line.
Blue Origin joined the argument by tweeting that “New Shepard flies above both boundaries. One of the many benefits of flying with Blue Origin.”
What is not disputed, however, is that Olver Daemen, 18, will become the youngest person to fly to space when he joins Bezos on the first human flight by his space company on July 20.
Daemen replaces anonymous bid winner
Daemen will fly in place of an anonymous $28 million (£20 million) winning bidder of a public auction, according to the BBC.
The winner of the auction could not fly on the mission “due to scheduling conflicts”, Bezos’ space venture Blue Origin said.
The teenager is the son of Somerset Capital Partners CEO Joes Daemen.
Daemen had secured a seat on the second flight but was moved up to the first when the winning bidder pulled out, Blue Origin explained. He then chose to instead fly his son, who is a physics student.
He will join Wally Funk, 82, who will become the oldest ever person in space. Bezos and his brother Mark will make up the rest of the passengers on the New Shepard rocket.
The previous winner of the auction has remained anonymous, even as the launch edged closer, and the nature of the “conflicts” which led to their withdrawal have not been disclosed.
Blue Origin has not said how much Daeman’s ticket cost.
It said the flight will fulfil a lifelong dream for the teenager, “who has been fascinated by space, the Moon and rockets since he was four”.
The company plans to launch its passengers more than 100km (62 miles) above the Earth’s surface, allowing them to experience microgravity.
The capsule will then return to earth using parachutes on a trip expected to last about 10 minutes.
Bezos created Blue Origin in 2000 and announced last month that he and his brother would embark on the flight – describing it as something he had wanted to do “all my life”.
Bezos donates $28m bid to space non-profits
Daemen “was a participant in the auction and had secured a seat on the second flight. We moved him up when this seat on the first flight became available,” a Blue Origin spokesperson told CNN Business.
“We’re not disclosing how much he paid.”
A source familiar with the matter told CNN that Daemen’s spot was purchased for him by his father, Joes Daemen, who is the founder and CEO of Somerset Capital Partners, an investment firm based in the Netherlands.
Daemen, who plans to attend the University of Utrecht in the Netherlands this fall, will become the youngest person ever to fly to space, while Funk will become the oldest.
This trip will mark the first ever crewed flight of Blue Origin’s suborbital space tourism rocket, called New Shepard, and the company used that fact as a selling point leading up to a livestreamed bidding war last month.
The $28 million bid was far higher than most had anticipated the auction would fetch. Blue Origin donated the money to its nonprofit group, Club for the Future, which is focused on encouraging science and tech education among children.
Club for the Future in turn donated $19 million of that money to a variety of space-focused nonprofits, including the Brooke Owens Fellowship, which is a women-in-tech scholarship fund, and the famed but financially struggling Space Camp in Alabama.
According to CNN, Blue Origin has spent the better part of the last decade running the suborbital New Shepard rocket through a series of successful test flights that have been fully automated and, thus far, carried no humans.
Conditions for flying on New Shepard
The company announced last month that it was finally ready to begin scheduling flights for passengers and that Bezos, the Amazon billionaire who founded Blue Origin in 2000, would be on the first-ever mission.
The company’s website says there are a few limitations on who can take a New Shepard flight.
Everyone must
· Be 18 years or older.
· Be in good enough physical shape to climb seven flights of stairs in a minute and a half.
· Be between 5’0″ and 6’4″ in height and between 110 pounds and 223 pounds in weight.
· Be able to fasten and unfasten their seat harness in less than 15 seconds.
· Be able to spend up to an hour and a half strapped into the capsule with the hatch closed.
· Be able to withstand up to 5.5G in force during descent.