Jeff Bezos’ aerospace manufacturer and sub-orbital spaceflight services company Blue Origin successfully launched its first rocket into space Tuesday, carrying the billionaire, his brother and several others into space. After the trip, CNBC reported that the billionaire former Amazon CEO announced Blue Origin had sold nearly $100 million in tickets for future passenger flights.
Video from inside the rocket showed Bezos and the other passengers experiencing the weightlessness of zero gravity.
“Oh wow,” Bezos can be heard saying as he begins floating around the cabin, with planet Earth framed in the spacecraft’s windows. The passengers took turns spinning around in zero gravity and tossing around bright orange ping pong balls, which then floated about the cabin.
At one point, Bezos sends a Skittle through to the air to another passenger who is hanging upside down in mid-air. The passenger catches the Skittle in his mouth, causing the group to erupt in cheers and laughter.
After returning to earth, Bezos exclaimed, “Best day ever! My expectations were high and they were dramatically exceeded.”
Bezos remarked how the experience made him see the earth in a new light, noting “how tiny it is and how fragile it is” during an interview with MSNBC, as reported by Newsweek.
“We need to take all heavy industry, all polluting industry, and move it into space. And keep Earth as this beautiful gem of a planet that it is,” Bezos added.
NASA astronauts train for months before traveling to space, but according to CBS News, Bezos, his brother Mark, 82-year-old Wally Funk and 18-year-old Oliver Daemen trained for a mere 14 hours.
Training included classroom instruction, demonstrations and a training capsule, which all complied with Federal Aviation Administration regulations. The Blue Origin amateur astronauts were then required to review five different scenarios and take a final exam.
The spacecraft, called New Shepard, is fully automated, so it didn’t require any pilots or flight controls onboard.
According to the Blue Origin website, to experience a flight into space, passengers must be between 5’0” 110 lbs. and 6’4” 223 lbs., must be able to fasten and unfasten his or her own seat harness in under 15 seconds and be capable of experiencing up to three times his or her normal weight (3gs) for up to two (2) minutes. Other terms and conditions also apply.
“This is a tiny little step of what Blue Origin is going to do,” Bezos told CNBC after he touched down. “What we’re really trying to do is build reusable space vehicles. It’s the only way to build a road to space, and we need to build a road to space so that our children can build the future.”
