Youngest, oldest, richest: Bezos' journey into space will set several records at once

Jeff Bezos' rocket company Blue Origin has announced its first ticket purchaser. It turned out to be 18-year-old Dutchman Oliver Daemen. He will become the youngest person ever to be in space, writes NBC News.

Photo: Shutterstock

Dutch teenager Oliver Daemen will join Amazon founder, brother Mark Bezos and pilot Wally Funk on a flight into space aboard a New Shepard rocket on July 20.

Oliver Daemen will be the youngest astronaut, while 82-year-old Funk will be the oldest. Bezos is considered the richest person on Earth, that is, he will be the richest person to have been in space.

Funk, a pilot and flight instructor, was part of a group of female Mercury 13 pilots who were tested to determine if women could handle space travel. Although female pilots passed the same tests as NASA's Mercury 1960 astronauts in the early 7s, they were rejected for being women.

Funk will break the age record set by astronaut and Senator John Glenn, who went into space in 1998 at the age of 77. Daemen will break the record set by Soviet cosmonaut German Titov, who was 25 when he flew into orbit four times, months after Yuri Gagarin, the first person to travel to space.

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The Federal Aviation Administration approved the launch on Monday, July 12, just one day after British billionaire Richard Branson flew into space aboard a rocket vehicle developed by his own space travel company Virgin Galactic.

Virgin Galactic also plans to start sending tourists into space.

Daemen secured his seat aboard the ship after the original winner of the $ 28 million Blue Origin auction, which remains anonymous, opted for a later mission "due to scheduling conflicts," according to the company.

“We thank the winning bidder for their generous support of Club for the Future, and we are honored to welcome Oliver to fly with us on New Shepard,” said Blue Origin CEO Bob Smith. “This marks the commercial start of New Shepard, and Oliver represents the next generation of people who will help us build the road to space.”

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A Blue Origin spokesman said Daemen "was a bidder and got a seat on the second flight."

“We moved it when that seat on the inaugural flight became available,” the spokesperson said.

The company said Daimen is the son of Somerset Capital Partners CEO Joes Daimen, who paid for the seat. The amount was not disclosed.

According to Blue Origin, Daemen has been fascinated by space since childhood. After taking a year off to obtain a private pilot's license, he plans to enroll at Utrecht University in the Netherlands in the fall to study physics and innovation management.

Oliver Daemen: "I am super excited to be going to space and joining" Jeff Bezos, Mark Bezos, and Wally Funk on the first Blue Origin crewed flight.https://t.co/RlW3GGdOMC

video via @bright pic.twitter.com/BwOj2EmfXX

- Michael Sheetz (@thesheetztweetz) July 15, 2021

“I’m really excited to go into space,” the guy says in a video posted on Twitter. “I’ve dreamed about this all my life.”

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