Jeff Bezos' Blue Origin Blasted Off, successfully completes space flight

Jeff Bezos

Amazon founder Jeff Bezos and three crewmates successfully reached the edge of space in the first crewed flight of the New Shepard rocket from Bezos' private spaceflight company Blue Origin.

The flight's crew included the Amazon founder, his brother, 18-year-old student Oliver Daemen, and 82-year-old veteran pilot Wally Funk, both became the oldest and youngest ever in space.

Blue Origin streaked skyward, three times the speed of sound.  Audio from the capsule captured the crew members shouting in excitement.

At 66 miles up they experienced a few minutes of the weightlessness of zero gravity.

The sub-orbital flight lasted about 11 minutes. 

After launching to 250,000 feet, the journey back was equally smooth.  Eight minutes into flight the reusable fully automated rocket landed vertically a couple miles from the launch pad, two minutes later, the capsule, three parachutes lowered on to the West Texas desert. 

The new shepard rocket was built with Bezos' billions. But it wasn't all praise for Bezos, workers rights advocates took to social media to mock the billionaire angered by this comment, 

"I also want tho thank every Amazon employee and every Amazon customer because you guys paid for all this," 

Bezos said.

The Blue Origin capsule reached the edge of space on the 52 year anniversary of the Apollo 11 moon landing. 

The capsule travelled 10 miles higher than Richard Branson's flight nine days earlier. Bezos intends to use his Amazon riches to build a new empire in space, competing for sub-orbital tourists with Virgin Galactic and Richard Branson.

Both Bezos and Branson believe there are enough willing customers to go around and they believe in the next decade space tourism will be a multi-billion dollar business.