Jeff Bezos will make his maiden space voyage on board the New Shepard, a spacecraft made by his company, Blue Origin. The journey is set for July 20, two weeks after he steps down as Amazon CEO.
“Ever since I was five years old, I’ve dreamed of traveling to space,” the entrepreneur posted to his Instagram on Monday. “On July 20th, I will take that journey with my brother. The greatest adventure, with my best friend.”
The New Shepard is a six-seater rocket. The crewed flight will hurtle towards space in an 11-minute journey that will touch a point 60 miles above Earth, the planet on which Bezos is the richest man with a net worth of $187 billion.
Fellow billionaires with imminent space flight plans include Virgin Galactic’s Richard Branson and SpaceX and Tesla boss Elon Musk.
Members of the public are able to bid for the first seat on the New Shepard, with the current highest bid being $2.8 million, out of 6,000 participants from 143 countries. Bidding will conclude with a live online auction on June 12.
The winner will accompany Bezos on the voyage. The winning bid amount will be donated to Blue Origin’s foundation, Club for the Future, whose mission is to inspire future generations to pursue careers in STEM and to help invent the future of life in space.
Amazon recently bought James Bond studio MGM for $8.45 billion. Amazon’s Prime Video streaming service is expected to benefit enormously from MGM content.
Bezos also owns The Washington Post.