Blue Origin succeeds round trip, making Jeff Bezos astronaut

Paris, 21 July 2021. – A “monumental day for Blue Origin and human spaceflight”: Blue Origin launched its owner, Jeff Bezos, his brother Mark and two other “commercial astronauts” – including the oldest and the youngest person ever – into space and brought them back to Earth.

The company successfully completed New Shepard’s first human flight with four private citizens onboard, Blue Origin said. The roundtrip crew included Jeff Bezos, Mark Bezos, Wally Funk and Oliver Daemen, “who all officially became astronauts when they passed the Kármán Line, the internationally recognized boundary of space”.

New Shepard became the “first commercial vehicle under a suborbital reusable launch vehicle license to fly paying customers, both payloads and astronauts, to space and back”, Blue Origin also said.

Jeff and Mark Bezos also became the “first siblings to ever fly in space together”.

Blue Origin expects to fly two more crewed flights this year, the company says, with many more crewed flights planned for 2022.