New Shepard: Blue Origin Launches Jeff Bezos, 3 Others Into Space In Its First Crewed Test Flight

Liftoff of the autonomous New Shepard -- which consists of a rocket topped by a capsule -- occurred at 1311 UTC, July 20, 2021, from Blue Origin's Launch Site One in West Texas.

The rocket returned safely, making a vertical, powered touchdown at its designated landing zone. Its descent was punctuated by a deafening sonic boom, along with raucous cheers from the Blue Origin workers here who watched the flight.

The capsule carried Bezos, 57, his brother Mark, 53, 82-year-old aviation pioneer Wally Funk and 18-year-old Dutch physics student Oliver Daemen 66.5 miles (107 kilometers) above Earth. It came down for a parachute-aided, dust-raising landing in the West Texas scrublands.

All of this action, from liftoff to landings, took just over 10 minutes. But it was doubtless the experience of a lifetime for the four passengers.

According to the Blue Origin broadcast, the peak altitude was 351,210 ft (107.05 km). The crew is in their capsule exclaiming about the experience, while awaiting their egress from the capsule with assistance from ground personnel.

"Oh my god!" Bezos said during a post-flight press conference today. "My expectations were high, and they were dramatically exceeded."

Bezos became the second billionaire to reach space in less than two weeks. On July 11, Virgin Group founder Richard Branson flew on the first fully crewed flight of the VSS Unity space plane, which is operated by Virgin Galactic, Blue Origin's chief rival in the suborbital space tourism business.