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“It’s a dream come true!” Mr Daemen said in a family press release. “I hadn’t counted on this at all until last week a surprising phone call from Blue Origin arrived. It’s incredibly cool! The flight to and in space only takes 10 minutes, but I already know that it will be the most special 10 minutes of my life.
Blue Origin’s spacecraft, New Shepard, is designed for brief space tourist flights, similar to Virgin Galactic’s SpaceShipTwo. But, unlike Virgin Galactic’s spaceplane design, New Shepard is more of a traditional rocket that launches vertically. Near the top of the arc, the capsule, where up to six people sit, separates from the booster. The thruster and capsule sail to an altitude above 62 miles, considered by many to be the limit of space. The landing of the capsule is slowed down by a parachute.
On this first flight, there will be four people on board: Mr. Daemen; Mr. Bezos; Mr. Bezos’ brother, Mark; and Mary Wallace Funk, a pilot who in the 1960s was part of a group of women who met the same rigorous criteria as NASA for the selection of astronauts. But this was at a time when the space agency had no interest in selecting women as astronauts.
At 18, Mr. Daemen will be the youngest person to ever be in space. At 82, Ms. Funk, who goes by the name Wally, will be the oldest.
According to the family’s press release, Mr Daemen and his father, Joes Daemen, founder of Somerset Capital Partners in the Netherlands, were intrigued by the possibility of flying. “But when the bids started to skyrocket during the auction, we gave up,” said Joes Daemen.
Blue Origin did not disclose how much the Daemens were paying for the seat; it has yet to publicly announce ticket prices. According to the Daemens, the price is well below the winning bid of $ 28 million. The money they donated will be donated by Blue Origin to a charity that has not yet been determined.
On Wednesday, Blue Origin announced that $ 19 million of the winning $ 28 million bid will go to 19 space-related nonprofits – $ 1 million each. The recipients include AstraFemina, a collective of women in science and engineering who aim to serve as role models for girls; the Brook Owens Fellowship, which offers paid internships and scholarships to undergraduate women; and Higher Orbits, an experimental learning lab for high school students.
Kitty Bennett contributed research and Claire Moses contributed translation.
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