Sharing Bezos's dream-come-true adventure was Wally Funk, from the Dallas area, one of 13 female pilots who went through the same tests as NASA's all-male astronaut corps in the early 1960s but never made it into space. Shepard's daughters, Laura and Julie, were introduced at a news conference a few hours later. Their flight lasted 10 minutes and 10 seconds - five minutes shy of Alan Shepard's Freedom 7 flight in 1961. 'My expectations were high and they were dramatically exceeded,' Bezos said later. Led by Bezos, they climbed out of the capsule after touchdown with wide grins, embracing parents, partners and children, then popped open bottles of sparkling wine, spraying one another. WATCH | Blue Origin rocket passengers goof off in space:ĭuration 0:47 Four passengers aboard Amazon founder Jeff Bezos' Blue Origin spacecraft enjoyed floaty games during a brief period of weightlessness on Tuesday's flight that lasted approximately 10 minutes and reached an altitude of about 106 kilometres. The capsule landed under parachutes, with Bezos and his guests briefly experiencing nearly six times the force of gravity, or 6 Gs, on the way back. Cheering, whooping and exclamations of 'wow' could be heard. The 60-foot (18-metre) booster accelerated to Mach 3 or three times the speed of sound to get the capsule high enough, before separating and landing upright.ĭuring their several minutes of weightlessness, video from inside the capsule showed the four floating, doing somersaults, tossing Skittles candies and throwing balls. Unlike Branson's piloted rocket plane, Bezos's capsule was completely automated and required no official staff on board for the up-and-down flight.īlue Origin reached an altitude of about 66 miles (106 kilometers), more than 10 miles (16 kilometers) higher than Branson's July 11 ride.

Jeff Bezos, founder of Amazon and space tourism company Blue Origin, exits Blue Origin's New Shepard capsule after it parachuted safely down to the launch area with passengers Mark Bezos, Oliver Daemen and Wally Funk, near Van Horn, Texas, on Tuesday, July 20.

Jeff bezos blue origin