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The Blue Origin Space Flight is absolutely historic!

SPACE TOURS!

On Tuesday, June 20th, history will be made in multiple ways as Jeff Bezos' Blue Origin space flight company will launch the New Shepard spacecraft at approximately 8 am CST,  along with its first paying passengers aboard.

New Shepard is a 60-foot-tall and fully autonomous rocket and passenger capsule that cannot be piloted from inside the spacecraft. It's a space tour at its finest as New Shepard blasts off at speeds upwards of 2,200 miles (3,540 km) per hour where those aboard will experience an 11-minute rocket ride to the edge of space along with experiencing 3 minutes of absolute weightlessness!

New Shepard will not enter into orbit around Earth but it will take the passengers some 62 miles up before the capsule returns by parachute!

Blue Origin compares Virgin Galactic's space flight experiences.

New Shepard launches LIVE.

Due to the remote and secluded West Texas launch site, there will NOT be an opportunity for an on-site public viewing area, but you can watch it live!

All eyes will be on Blue Orbit's website where you can watch the historic launch or, just by clicking here! The live stream will begin 90 minutes before the scheduled launch time at 8 am CST.

More firsts for space flight history!

Aboard the New Shepard spacecraft, history again will be made when the youngest and oldest persons to reach outer space will be aboard! The youngest passenger and first teenager in space will be 18 year old Oliver Daemen, whose father, paid for a seat for himself and then chose to gave it to his son instead.

It's been written that passengers who board the New Shepard will receive two days of training, but for one of the passengers, she has been training for this ride her entire adult life!

The oldest passenger on this historic flight is none other than 82-year-old female aviator Wally Funk, who was rumored to have been passed up for astronautical space flight in the '60s due to her gender.

On a side note, and this might also be considered historic itself, an anonymous passenger has previously paid MILLIONS of dollars for a seat on this very flight, but had to cancel due to " scheduling conflicts!"

 Even the date of this launch is a nod to history.

The date has been chosen as it is exactly 52 years after Apollo 11 astronauts Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin took their first steps on the moon.

Why space flight tours?

"To see the Earth from space, it changes you, it changes your relationship with this planet, with humanity," Bezos has said. He along with his youngest brother Mark, will make up the rest of the four-person passenger list of this historic flight.

 

Did you know...?

One way I love to look at this type of space flight experience is to consider that if we were able to drive our cars on a road straight up to space, at 60 miles per hour it would take us an hour to get there! Check this fact out on Sciencefocus.com!

I'll be watching the launch for sure and cheering for all!

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