By Yoel Ackerman. Jeff Bezos, Amazon’s famed CEO made headlines several months ago when he launched a passenger rocket into space.
The launch was a success and now another launch is yet again slated for this Thursday. Bezo’s new Rocket company, Blue Origin, was initially set to launch on Tuesday but cancelled the event due to rough winds at its launching pad in Van Horn, Texas.
Blue Origin has already successfully launched three passenger rockets into the suborbital regions of outer space, approximately 60 miles above the Earth’s surface. The rocket moves at three times the speed of sound and it only takes ten minutes to get to space. The rocket ship has a space capsule that deploys parachutes for its passengers to safely come back down to Earth.
The company has been marketing its business for paid customers via auction. Last year a paid customer won an auction to sit along Bezos for a mere 28 million dollars. This Thursday, however, there will be a non paid customer who will get to briefly experience outer space.
Gary Lai, who is an employee of Blue Origin and a holder of multiple patents relating to a launch vehicle, will get his chance at a once in a lifetime experience. Lai is the Chief architect of the Blue Origin rocket design.
Blue Origin is not the only tourism rocket to take paid customers above Earth. Their competitors, Virgin Galactic, also charges for the experience. Virgin Galantic is the first passenger rocket to enter space, doing so several days before Blue Origin, in 2021. It sells its seats for $450,000 each.
The public can watch this Thursday’s launch from Blue Origin’s website.
I asked Blue Origin if I can fly to space with them, but they told me there was no more SPACE for me. So I tried asking the astronauts themselves – as they were taking off – if I can fly with them, but they didn’t hear what I was saying because they were flying 3 times the speed of sound, thus my words never reached their ears.
What a shame. A missed opportunity.
The picture is of a different rocket
For a frum person, it’s not worth it.
After the trip, the newly-minted space traveler will be hounded by the scholarly oilam wishing to know which b’rochos were made on seeing the Earth from above, since there must be some machlokes about it, and if a second kidushin was required, because the person wasn’t in this world, for few minutes.
Conversely, another group will berate him for wasting his own money on such nonsense, when he could have helped out so many mosdos, tzedokos, and someone’s pet projects. Everyone feels fully entitled to opine about other people’s wealth, and on how it should be spent.