New York: As Blue Origin founder Jeff Bezos gears up for his maiden space trip, he said that going to space was a lifelong dream and he is really excited to find out how this expedition will change him.
Jeff Bezos will fly off with three others from a desert site in West Texas on an 11-minute trip to the edge of space aboard his company Blue Origin’s New Shepard.
Blue Origin’s sights are also set higher: both in the altitude to which its reusable New Shepard craft will ascend compared to Virgin’s spaceplane, but also in its ambitions.
Bezos, 57, founded Blue Origin in 2000 with the goal of one day building floating space colonies with artificial gravity where millions of people will work and live.
Today, the company is developing a heavy-lift orbital rocket called New Glenn and also a Moon lander it is hoping to contract to NASA.
New Shepard has flown 15 uncrewed flights to put it through its paces and test safety mechanisms, like firing the capsule away from the launchpad if the rocket explodes, or landing it with one less parachute.
Lift-off is at 8:00 am Central Time (1300 GMT) from a remote facility in the west Texas desert called Launch Site One, some 25 miles (40 kilometers) north of the nearest town, Van Horn.
Weather conditions currently appear favorable and the event will be live streamed on BlueOrigin.com, starting 90 minutes before launch.
He chose to take off on his maiden flight on July 20 since it is the 52nd anniversary of Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin’s iconic moon landing in 1969. Virgin Galactic took a similar trip to space on July 11, with Sir Richard Branson.