Jeff Bezos successfully completes space flight

AMAZON founder- turned- private space entrepreneur and philanthropist, Jeff Bezos has reached the lower reaches of space over the West Texas desert early yesterday, fulfilling a boyhood dream and ending a long series of delays for his private space company.

The world’s richest man and three others were propelled to a height of 107km, 7km above the internationally recognised boundary of space, in a 60ft rocket built by Blue Origin.

They experienced about three minutes of weightlessness and views of the Earth through giant portholes the company has called the “largest windows in space” before their capsule drifted back to the desert for a soft landing under three parachutes.

The Amazon founder, who has faced criticism for spending billions of dollars on his personal jaunt into space, has dismissed claims that he was turning his back on more serious issues. “We’ll be building a road to space, to do amazing things that solve problems here on Earth,” he told CNN before the flight.

Bezos has said that development in space will eventually ease the burdens on the planet, claiming: “All polluting industry will move off Earth, and Earth will end up zoned residential.”

The launch marks the first for a paying passenger on a rocket to be entirely developed and operated by a private company. Oliver Daemen, 18, the son of a Dutch hedge fund manager, was given a last- minute place on the flight after the unnamed winner of an auction for the seat cried off because of what the company called a “scheduling conflict”.

“This is a big moment for commercial space, it’s hugely significant,” said Greg Autry, a former White House liaison to Nasa. Besides signalling the beginning of suborbital space tourism, the flight had shown that Blue Origin had perfected technologies that would power far more ambitious launches in future, he added.

A grinning Bezos emerged from the capsule minutes after touchdown in a battered cowboy hat to exchange high- fives with a gaggle of well- wishers who had rushed to the landing site. He had climbed the tower to the capsule 30 minutes before the planned launch, after being driven to the rocket in a Rivian electric van , the vehicle Amazon plans to turn into the main workhorse for its ecommerce deliveries.