The world's richest person, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, and three very different crewmates are scheduled to fly into space Tuesday morning from Texas.

Liftoff of Blue Origin's New Shepard suborbital rocket is planned at 9 a.m. EDT from the company's Corn Ranch launch site 160 miles east of El Paso, although weather and technical problems can always delay the launch.

"It feels good to be in the flight suit," Bezos, 57, said in an Instagram post Monday as he viewed a training capsule.

"I literally have had goose bumps ... and they haven't gone away," said his brother and crewmate Mark Bezos, 53.

The brothers are to ride into space with pioneering female aviator Wally Funk, 82, and passenger Oliver Daemen, 18. They would become the oldest and youngest people, respectively, to reach space.

Daemen also becomes the first paying customer on a private company's spacecraft. His father secured the seat for the teen after a Blue Origin auction June 12. The winner bid $28 million, but backed out because of a scheduling conflict, the company said.

"We are also flying, of course, our first paying commercial customer, and the fact that we're doing this on a private vehicle ... from a private launch site is just something that hasn't been done," Audrey Powers, vice president resident of New Shepard operations, said during a press conference Monday.

Bezos will become the second person to reach space aboard his own company's private spacecraft, the Blue Origin capsule. Just nine days earlier, Richard Branson, founder of Virgin Galactic, secured that record, but he launched from the public Spaceport America, which is owned by the state of New Mexico, 170 miles south of Albuquerque.

Branson's crew members were Virgin Galactic employees who were testing the "passenger experience," the company said.

Bezos chose July 20 for the launch because it is the anniversary of the Apollo 11 moon landing in 1969. He plans for Blue Origin to eventually build orbital rockets and facilities on the moon -- and even asteroids of Mars.

Blue Origin's live broadcast starts at 7:30 a.m. EDT, 90 minutes before liftoff. The four crew members will ascend the launch tower and reach the capsule via a walkway, just like NASA astronauts have done for decades.

The crew will be strapped in and await a live countdown. Upon liftoff, the rocket will accelerate to over 2,200 mph, creating gravity forces that will feel about three times the normal pull on Earth.

After reaching space, the crew will experience a few minutes of weightlessness and then return to Earth under parachutes. The flight will be over in about 11 minutes.

Unlike many other spaceports, Blue Origin's facility is in a remote area, on a 165,000-acre property with no public vantage points for viewing. Company officials said state troopers will close the only public highway nearby for several hours before and after launch.

Blue Origin intends the launch to begin a new period of space tourism, leading to more space exploration, CEO Bob Smith said.

"New Shepard is only the beginning because Blue Origin is a company that is not only building space vehicles, but it is ... tackling the building blocks, the technology, the people, the processes and the infrastructure needed to truly lower the cost of access to space, and enable a near term future where people live and work in space for the benefit of Earth," Smith said.

Related Links
Rocket Science News at Space-Travel.Com

Thanks for being there; We need your help. The SpaceDaily news network continues to grow but revenues have never been harder to maintain. With the rise of Ad Blockers, and Facebook - our traditional revenue sources via quality network advertising continues to decline. And unlike so many other news sites, we don't have a paywall - with those annoying usernames and passwords. Our news coverage takes time and effort to publish 365 days a year. If you find our news sites informative and useful then please consider becoming a regular supporter or for now make a one off contribution.
SpaceDaily Monthly Supporter $5+ Billed Monthly		SpaceDaily Contributor $5 Billed Once credit card or paypal

Umbra awarded $950M IDIQ contract following Space-X launch
Santa Barbara CA (SPX) Jul 20, 2021
Umbra has been awarded a $950,000,000 ceiling indefinite-delivery/indefinite-quantity (IDIQ) contract for the maturation, demonstration, and proliferation of capability across platforms and domains, leveraging open systems design, modern software, and algorithm development to enable Joint All Domain Command and Control (JADC2). This contract is part of a multi-award, multi-level security effort to provide development and operation of systems as a unified force across all domains - air, land, sea, ... read more

Read more from original source...