Jeff Bezos flies into space aboard the New Shepard spacecraft

In an interview with CBS News, Bezos said, “I’m excited. People keep asking me if I’m nervous. I’m not really nervous, I’m curious. I want to know what we’re going to learn. “

“We were training. This vehicle is ready, this crew is ready, this team is amazing. We feel really good.”

“It will happen! Said Funk.

In the 1960s, Funk was a member of a women’s group called Mercury 13, who underwent the same drug tests as male astronauts, but never had the opportunity to travel to space.

At 2:00 p.m. GMT (9:00 a.m. EST), the four passengers will take off aboard a rocket from the Bezos special launch site near Van Horn, Texas.

The capsule, which contains the Bezos Funk brothers and student Oliver Damon, separates from its booster at an altitude of about 76 kilometers. The rocket lands on its “feet” about two miles from the launch pad, while the capsule continues to climb to a height of about 106 kilometers.

“We’re going to be weightless for four minutes and get out of our seats and dismount and float and watch the thin end of Earth’s atmosphere,” Bezos told CBS News.

“People – the astronauts – say that when they do this, they can see that the Earth is very fragile,” he added.

“The views are going to be amazing and the weightlessness will be an amazing experience that you cannot have in a good way on Earth,” he said.

When asked what she’s looking forward to, Funk said she wanted to experience “when I’m in space and be able to do somersaults and somersaults and do whatever I want. make”.

Once the capsule has reached its maximum height, it begins to descend and parachute quietly into the desert.

This flight is the last in the so-called “billionaire space race”. It comes just nine days after Bezos’ space tourism rival Sir Richard Branson flew above Earth in his Virgin Galactic space plane.

In an interview with Stephen Colbert’s “Light Show” last week, Sir Richard insisted that it was not important for him to beat Bezos, and even got some friendly advice from Amazon founder, he replied, “Just get the outside view – really Elle A once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.

Although the private space flight revolution is often described as an attempt to expand access to space for everyone, a seat on one of the Virgin Galactic flights will cost passengers $ 250,000, while the price a regular ticket to travel on the New Shepherd has not been announced. “.

With a net worth of around $ 200 billion, Bezos is the richest man in the world.

The 57-year-old recently resigned as CEO of e-commerce giant Amazon to focus on the company’s own initiatives and other businesses such as Blue Origin.

Bezos’ brother Mark, 53, founded an advertising agency and is now senior vice president of the New York-based Robin Hood charity.

The fourth passenger on the New Shepherd flight is the son of Joyce Daemin, founder of Dutch private equity firm Partner Capital Somerset Real Estate. Oliver initially got a seat on the second flight, but took the place of the unknown winner at the auction.

The anonymous winner, who paid $ 28 million to join Bezos on the New Shepard’s first manned flight, was forced to step down “due to a scheduling conflict.”

Bezos and Branson have both faced backlash on social media, with users saying space money could be better spent, like fighting climate change or helping the world recover from the coronavirus pandemic.

Sir Richard responded to the critics by saying, “I can understand that, but I think maybe they weren’t fully aware of what space is doing to Earth… Space connects millions of people no connected. “

He added that satellites were monitoring “rainforest degradation and the distribution of food – even things like climate change. These things are essential for people here on Earth. We need more spacecraft to go into there. ‘space, we don’t need less “.