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The wait is over, Jeff Bezos and Blue Origin have completed a successful spaceflight, in hopes of starting a new era of commercial passenger flights into space.
The 57-year-old Amazon founder was aboard the 10-minute flight, and was accompanied by his brother Mark Bezos, 82-year-old pilot Wally Funk, who just became the oldest person to fly in space, and 18-year-old Oliver Daemen, a Dutch student, who is now the youngest person to fly into space.
Bezos described the long-awaited moment as his “best day ever,” after lifting off from the launching site located in West Texas.
The passengers seemed to have the time of their life during the short minutes inside the spacecraft, enjoying three minutes of floating around the cabin, with the most incredible view inside the capsule named First Step.
After reaching the maximum altitude of 66.5 miles, everyone aboard had about 60 seconds to get back to their seats and make a safe return to earth.
During their mission, the passengers described the incredible spaceflight as “intense,” with Jeff sharing how thrilled they were, as a “very happy group of people.”
Right after the booster landed, Bezos admitted that his “ expectations were high, and they were drastically exceeded,” adding that he was “grateful to everybody who made this possible.”
He also confessed he is planning to fly human missions twice more this year, now that he wants to share the joy of flying into space with more future passengers.
“Every astronaut, everybody who‘s been up into space, they say this, that it changes them, and they look at it and they’re kind of amazed and awestruck by the Earth and it beauty, but also by its fragility,” Bezos shared.