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Jeff Bezos, his brother Mark, one of the auction winners, and another unnamed person, will board a Blue Origin rocket bound for space on July 20.
Toggle caption Patrick Semansky / AP
Jeff Bezos, his brother Mark, the auction winner who paid the price and another unnamed person will board a Blue Origin rocket bound for space on July 20.
Patrick Simansky/AFP
On July 20, Amazon founder and billionaire Jeff Bezos and his brother Mark will board the new Shepherd sub-orbital missile system. The Bezos brothers, auction winners of $28 million, and fourth person will become the first crew members aboard the reusable rocket on its 11-minute journey into space.
Since Bezos announced his trip to space earlier this month, tens of thousands of people have come together to petition against his return to the planet.
There are many petitions, but the front-runner, “Don’t Let Jeff Bezos Back Down To Earth,” had amassed more than 33,000 signatures by late Sunday. “Billionaires should not exist,” the description read. “On Earth, or in space, but if they decide the latter they should stay there.”
Bezos is the founder of the space exploration company Blue Origin, which built the New Shepard. The rocket is reusable and can accommodate six passengers in its capsule.
“If you see Earth from space, it changes you. It changes your relationship to this planet, to humanity. It is one Earth,” Bezos said in a video posted to Instagram.
Bezos is not the only billionaire who has set his sights on out-of-this-world endeavors.
Elon Musk is the founder of SpaceX, which has achieved a number of firsts in private spaceflight, including being the first private company to fly astronauts to the International Space Station last year. The company’s website advertises spaceflights to pay customers. Musk himself has not announced any immediate plans for space travel. But Japanese billionaire Yusaku Maezawa has booked a flight with SpaceX to travel around the moon in 2023.
Richard Branson, founder of the Virgin Group, also has a space program – Virgin Galactic, which also has a reusable spacecraft intended for commercial space travel. Branson plans to be on one of the upcoming Virgin Galactic flights.
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