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$3.5m a minute: Bezos makes it to space

Eliza Bavin
·Personal Finance Editor
·2-min read
Worlds richest man Jeff Bezos and crew
Jeff Bezos has launched himself into space with his brother, 82-year old Wally Funk and 18 year old Oliver Van Daemen (Source: Getty)

The Amazon founder and Blue Origin CEO Jeff Bezos has gone to space on his spacecraft The New Shepard.

Bezos was on board with his brother Mark, 82-year-old pioneer of the space race Wally Funk and 18-year-old student Oliver Daemen of the Netherlands.

Bezos' brother and Funk were hand selected to join him on the flight, whereas Daeman’s father purchased the ticket in an auction for $38 million (US$28 million).

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The proceeds of the ticket sale was donated to Blue Origin’s foundation, Club for the Future, whose mission is to inspire future generations to pursue careers in STEM and to help invent the future of life in space.

The launch took place from Bezos' private launch site near Van Horn, Texas, and the flight lasted about 10 minutes.

For Daeman, the flight cost about $3.8 million a minute.

Billionaire space race

Sir Richard Branson beat Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk to be the first billionaire to travel to space earlier this month.

Travelling on his own Virgin Galactic vehicle Branson made history by travelling on the spaceflight.

“I have dreamt about this moment since I was a child, but nothing could have prepared me for the view of Earth from space,” Branson said.

Musk has been focussing his efforts on making space travel more affordable with the invention of reusable rockets.

Bezos and Branson had been vying to be the first passenger-ready space companies working to commercialise space travel.

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