Blue Origin is sending six space tourists

Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin company sent the first Egyptian and the first Portuguese into space on a New Shepard rocket for about ten minutes. A total of six space tourists in the group paid a secret price.

Departed Thursday from West Texas. Once propelled by the launcher, the capsule reached an altitude of more than 100 kilometers before descending toward Earth, slowly descending by parachutes for a soft landing in the desert.

Above, passengers can experience weightlessness by detaching themselves from their seats for a few moments, and view the curvature of the Earth through large portholes.

‘I’m floating!’ exclaimed a passenger on board. In the live broadcast of the flight, ‘Look at that black!’ another joked.

This is the sixth successful space tourism flight for Blue Origin in a year, the first being a flight with Jeff Bezos in late July 2021.

Egyptian Sarah Sabri, an engineer and founder of an association aimed at promoting space exploration, funded by the ‘Space for Humanity’ project, aims to democratize access to space.

Also part of the expedition was Portuguese businessman Mario Ferreira, who was prominently involved in the Dakar Rally.

Guinness World Record

With this flight, American-British Vanessa O’Brien also became the first woman to win a Guinness World Record for having rubbed shoulders on Earth (she climbed Mount Everest) and in water (to the Challenger Deep). ) and in the air, crossing the boundary of space.

The team was completed by Coby Cotton, co-founder of the popular YouTube channel, entrepreneur Steve Young and Clint Kelly III, who worked at the Pentagon agency, where he led the development program of self-driving cars.

Blue Origin’s main competitor for this type of sub-cruise flight is Virgin Galactic. But from July 2021, the plane of its founder, Briton Richard Branson, has landed to make changes to the ship.

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