BREAKING NEWS: Jeff Bezos blasts off

BILLIONAIRE Jeff Bezos has blasted off on his first private spaceflight.

Bezos is set to become an astronaut after blasting off from Texas today, July 20.

His ship, the New Shepard, is part of Bezos’s spaceflight company, Blue Origin, and will take part in a 10 minute journey more than 63 miles into space before landing back.

The Blue Origin spacecraft  has undergone 15 test flights, none of which had any passengers onboard.

Blue Origin closed the first round of the auction earlier this year and said it had received more than 5,200 bidders from 136 countries, without disclosing the highest bid from the round. The current highest bid stood at $ 2.8 – € 2.31million- in the ongoing second round of the auction, according to details on the Blue Origin’s website.

Its New Shepard rocket-and-capsule combo is designed to autonomously fly six passengers more than 62 miles (100 km) above Earth into suborbital space, high enough to experience a few minutes of weightlessness and see the curvature of the planet before the pressurised capsule returns to earth under parachutes.

The capsule features six observation windows and are nearly three times as tall as those on a Boeing 747 jetliner and the largest ever used in space, Blue Origin said ahead of the take off.

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