This undated image provided by Blue Origin shows an illustration of the capsule that will be used to take tourists into space. Blue Origin announced Thursday, July 15, 2021, that instead of an auction winner launching with founder Jeff Bezos on Tuesday, Oliver Daemen, 18, will be on board. The company said he'll be the first paying customer, but did not disclose the cost of his ticket. (Blue Origin via AP)
By Marcia Dunn
An 18-year-old is about to become the youngest person in space, rocketing away with an aviation pioneer who will become the oldest at age 82.
Blue Origin announced Thursday that instead of a $28 million auction winner launching with founder Jeff Bezos on Tuesday, Dutch runner-up Oliver Daemen will be on board. The company said he'll be the first paying customer, but did not disclose the price of his ticket.
“I am super excited to experience zero-g and see the world from above," Daemen said in a video posted by Dutch broadcaster RTL.
Also soaring on Blue Origin’s first launch with passengers: Bezos’ brother and Wally Funk, one of 13 female pilots who went through the same studies in the early 1960s as NASA's Mercury 7 astronauts did, but were rejected for being women.
The four will blast off from West Texas atop a New Shepard rocket for a 10-minute flight.
According to Blue Origin, Daemen took a year off after graduating from high school last year to obtain his private pilot’s license. He’ll attend the University of Utrecht in the Netherlands in September.
His father is Joes Daemen, founder and CEO of Somerset Capital Partners, a private equity firm in Oisterwijk, Netherlands. Both father and son are already in the U.S. preparing for the launch, according to a company representative.
“This marks the beginning of commercial operations for New Shepard, and Oliver represents a new generation of people who will help us build a road to space,” Blue Origin CEO Bob Smith said in a statement.
Blue Origin said the yet-to-be-identified winner of the charity auction is stepping aside because of a scheduling conflict and will catch a future flight. Daemen was going to be on the second launch for paying customers.
The company has yet to open ticket sales or disclose its prices to the public. That’s expected following Bezos’ flight.
The Amazon founder will become the second person to ride his own rocket into space, following Virgin Galactic's Richard Branson by nine days.
Soviet cosmonaut Ghermon Titov holds the record for the youngest to fly in space. He was 25 when he blasted into orbit four months after Yuri Gagarin, the first person in space. John Glenn was 77 when he launched aboard space shuttle Discovery in 1998, 37 years after becoming the first American to orbit the world.
___
The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Department of Science Education. The AP is solely responsible for all content.
Jonah Goldman, the managing director at Bill Gates-founded Breakthrough Energy, joined Cheddar News to talk about the promising growth in the climate change-conscious investments the organization has made over the years. ”I mean when we're looking at some of the hard to abate technologies and cement and steel and aviation fuel, all of those have promising pathways that weren't there again just a few years ago," he said. "We invest across all of the technology areas that are driving emissions, greenhouse gas emissions and there really are exciting products and technologies coming out in almost every one of those sectors.”
Robert Bonnie, farm production and conservation undersecretary for the USDA, spoke to Cheddar about climate-smart strategies to help farmers reduce carbon emissions from agriculture. "We share the costs of installing those practices on their lands in ways that will protect the climate and maintain agricultural productivity, and we're also partnering with farmers to draw in private investment in greenhouse gas emissions reductions provided by agriculture and forestry," he said. The hope is to get farmers and ranchers to produce climate-smart commodities to lessen the impact of climate change.
Cheddar's J.D. Durkin caught up with the head of NASA Bill Nelson, a former senator, who feels one thing that seems less rancorous on Capitol Hill these days is the work of the space agency.
Catching you up on what you need to know on April 22, 2022, with updates on a new Ukraine aid package, a new missile test by Russia, DOJ announcement of $150 Million in COVID-related fraud, the Florida senate supports Gov. DeSantis in stripping Disney of its special tax district, and more.
Scientists say a U.K. patient with a severely weakened immune system had COVID-19 for almost a year and a half. The case underscores the importance of protecting vulnerable people from the coronavirus.
Cheddar's Lawrence Banton speaks with entrepreneurs leading the way on textile and clothing recycling in an effort to help stem waste in fashion amid the climate crisis.
The FDA just approved a first-of-its-kind treatment for individuals with blood cancer that has proven results of 5-year survival rates. Christi Shaw, CEO of Kite, a Gilead company, joins Cheddar Innovates to discuss how this treatment works and compares to others currently on the market.
Dr. Neta Lavon, CTO and VP of R&D at Aleph Farms, joins Cheddar Innovates to discuss how the team sent cow cells to space to further research the production of meat in space, and why developing cultivated meat is so critical to the future of space travel.
Catching you up on what you need to know on April 21, 2022, with President Biden set to announce more security assistance funding to Ukraine, polls showing a majority of Americans in favor of transit mask mandates, rapper A$AP Rocky's arrest, and more.
