Big day for Bezos: Blue Origin launches its first crewed mission

Jeff Bezos is achieving his lifelong dream of flying into space while officially launching his space-travel company’s commercial operations.

Amazon.com and Blue Origin founder Jeff Bezos and his three crewmates are setting off on a mission 20 years in the making: flying into space. On Tuesday, Bezos, his brother, Mark Bezos, veteran pilot Wally Funk and Dutch student Oliver Daemen are slated to blast off on a 10-minute suborbital flight aboard the New Shepard rocket in what the company hopes will be a giant leap forward for commercial space travel. “It’s thrilling to get to this day, and I’m so proud of Team Blue,” Bob Smith, Blue Origin’s CEO, told Al Jazeera. “After 15 flights of New Shepard, we are ready to fly our first crew, including our first paying customer, Oliver Daemen.”