Jeff Bezos Is About To Be The Second Billionaire Ever To Go Into Space Only He's Doing It With An 80-Year-Old Woman, An 18-Year-Old Kid, An NO PILOT
Source - The mystery bidder who put up a whopping $28 million for an 11-minute joy ride to the edge of space alongside Jeff Bezos will not make the trip, Bezos' rocket company Blue Origin announced Thursday.
Blue Origin said in a press release that the person, who asked to remain anonymous for the time being, had to bow out because of "scheduling conflicts." The winner will instead take a spot on a future mission. Flying in their place — alongside Bezos, his brother Mark Bezos, and Wally Funk, an 82-year-old pilot and one of the "Mercury 13" women — will be an 18-year old recent high school graduate named Oliver Daemen.
The flight is slated for July 20. Daemen, who plans to attend the University of Utrecht in the Netherlands this fall, will become the youngest person ever to fly to space, while Funk will become the oldest.
We are living in a simulation, folks. It is 2021, the world is burning, and we have two gazillionaires competing in a space travel dick measuring contest just for shits and giggles. Richard Branson made it there first so what does Jeff Bezos do? He one-ups him by brining not only the oldest person ever into space, but the youngest person as well. The latter of which Reags blogged about last week. But that's not even the craziest part of this story. The craziest part is that the New Shepard rocket, Blue Origin's space ship, will have NO PILOT on board meaning the entire flight start to finish will be an automated process...
From CBS News:
Unlike Branson's Virgin Galactic spaceplane, which is manually flown by professional pilots, New Shepard is fully automated, launching atop a reusable single-stage rocket and then soaring out of the lower atmosphere on its own before arcing over for a parachute descent to Earth.
There are no pilots or flight controls onboard, and while passengers don't need the sort of extensive training professional astronauts undergo, company trainers want to make sure they understand what to expect, from the acceleration of powered flight through the brief period of weightlessness they will enjoy before returning to Earth.
Do I trust the technology? Sure, but I'd also like someone to be there incase things go wrong. Ya know, for peace of mind. Not only that, god forbid it blows up who are they going to blame? The computer?!? The whole thing just makes me feel uneasy. Also isn't pilotless travel is kind of Elon Musk's thing? Regardless, the fact that Bezos and his brother are launching into space with those two is laugh out loud funny. What are they going to talk about? The weather? Chances are it'll be a very awkward twelve minutes. Oh well. The launch is set for tomorrow at 7:30 AM EST and will be streamed at blueorigin.com. I'll report back if anything interesting happens.