The world’s billionaires have started a race to become among the first people to visit space with their own spaceships. The founder of Virgin Galactic, Richard Branson, spent 17 years preparing to become the first billionaire to travel to space with his own spacecraft, and he succeeded a couple of days ago. But, he is not the only one. Jeff Bezos, founder of Blue Origin, and Elon Musk, founder of SpaceX, are planning to go to space and even take more people with them.
The youngest astronaut to reach space
Oliver Daemen is only 18 years old, and he will go to space with Jeff Bezos on the 20th of July. Inside the New Shepard crew capsule there will be Jeff Bezos, the oldest astronaut Wally Funk, and Olive Daemen, the youngest person to go to space. This was not previously planned because the winner of the Blue Origin auction was an unknown person.
Apparently, that person decided to fly another time with another New Shepard capsule due to his busy schedule. The young boy from the Netherland acquired a seat in a second flight, but now he will accompany Jeff Bezos in the first one.
Welcome to the crew, Oliver! We’re grateful to have you as our first customer to mark the beginning of commercial operations. #NSFirstHumanFlight https://t.co/gwZ6qBOFpi pic.twitter.com/SuOwxe2353
— Blue Origin (@blueorigin) July 15, 2021
Who are Olivier Daemen and Wally Funk?
The youngest person to go to space is from the Netherlands, and he just graduated high school last year. His father, the fund founder Joes Daemen, presented this trip to his son as part of his graduation present.
Daemen plans to study physics and innovation management at the University of Utrecht. Blue Origin tweeted the news, and this is just the beginning of the commercial operations for Jeff Bezos and his space tourism business.
The oldest person to go to space, the 82-year-old Mary Wallace, known as Wally Funk, is a graduate of the ‘Women in Space’ program and never had a chance to fly to space before.
