Bezos flies higher than Branson in space
Amazon founder first civilian to cross 100-km barrier in pvt rocket
Van Horn, Texas, July
20: Jeff Bezos, the world’s richest man, soared about
107 km above the Texas desert aboard his company Blue Origin’s New Shepard launch vehicle on Tuesday and returned safely to Earth, a historic suborbital flight that helps to inaugurate a new era of private space tourism.
“Best day ever,” Bezos, accompanied by the world’s oldest and youngest space travellers, said after his space capsule descended with three large parachutes and touched down, kicking up a cloud of dust.
The 57-year-old American billionaire was joined by three crewmates for a trip to the edge of space lasting 10 minutes and 10 seconds.
The flight came nine days after Briton Richard Branson was aboard his space tourism company Virgin Galactic’s successful inaugural suborbital flight.
New Shepard hurtled at speeds reaching 3,595 km per hour, exceeding the socalled Kármán line — 100 km — set by an international body to define the boundary betwe-en Earth’s atmosphere and space.
Branson got to space first by flying 86 km above Earth, but Bezos flew higher. in what experts called the world's first unpiloted space flight with an allcivilian crew. The flight had the oldest and youngest ever persons to fly to the space. After the capsule separated from the booster, the crew unbuckled to experience weightlessness. The capsule then returned to Earth under parachutes.
July 20: US business mogul Jeff Bezos, founder of Amazon.com Inc, has launched himself into space aboard his company Blue Origin's New Shepard rocket on Tuesday, nine days after rival Richard Branson became the first billionaire astronaut.
Here is a look at Bezos' life, from building an ecommerce startup in a garage in the suburbs of Seattle, to launching into space, a dream the entrepreneur has had since he was 5 years old.
1964: On January 12, Jeffrey Preston Jorgensen is born in Albuquerque,
New Mexico to Jacklyn Gise and Ted Jorgensen and is later adopted by Miguel Bezos.
1986: Graduates from Princeton University after studying electrical engineering and computer science.
1990: Joins investment bank D.E. Shaw & Co, soon named the firm's youngest senior vice president.
1993: Marries MacKenzie Tuttle, whom he met at D.E. Shaw.
1994: Bezos, who called himself a "garage inventor" from a young age, quits D.E. Shaw, moves to Seattle to open a virtual bookstore out of a garage.
1995: Amazon.com sells its first book, begins to rapidly expand and diversify.
2000: Bezos sets up his rocket startup Blue Origin.
2006: Amazon introduces cloud computing service Amazon Web
Services and Amazon Unbox, the original video programming service to be later renamed to Amazon Prime Video.
2007: Amazon releases Kindle, a portable digital reading device.
2012: Blue Origin begins flight testing New Shepard.
2019: Jeff and MacKenzie file for divorce after 25 years of marriage.
2021: Bezos steps down as CEO of Amazon on July
5, but remains executive chairman of e-commerce giant, with a net worth of over $206 billion, by the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.