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.
A recent survey by research firm Cohn & Wolfe found that 86 percent of Americans think companies should be socially and environmentally responsible. Burt's Bees is carbon-neutral certified and hasn't sent any waste to a landfill since 2010. Paula Alexander, Director of Sustainable Business at the company, tells Cheddar why it's important to work for a company that makes a difference.
Peter Loftus, Reporter at the Wall Street Journal, is skeptical of pharmaceutical companies touting lower drug prices. Merck may be cutting prices on medications, Loftus told Cheddar, but the ones affected represent a smaller percentage of the company's total sales.
These are the headlines you Need2Know
Kevin Sabet, who co-founded a nonprofit called Smart Approaches To Marijuana, compares the current state of the cannabis industry to the early days of the tobacco business. Back then, he points out, "we had a relatively new industry that had a product that [had] been around for a long time, but that they started marketing and developing into something addictive."
Cigna CEO David Cordani is co-author of "The Courage To Go Forward," a new book that explores the unique impact of micro communities. Cordani hopes Cigna's recent acquisition of Express Scripts will localize healthcare networks and expand his consumer base.
Regulators in Colorado have to keep up with and adapt to a fast-growing, ever-changing industry which consistently introduces new products into the market. "It is a challenge, but the engagement we have with stakeholders has been really valuable in helping us navigate those issues," says Dominique Mendiola, recently-appointed director of marijuana coordination in the state.
These are the headlines you Need2Know:
Trump Faces Bipartisan Backlash
Russian Woman Charged With Election Meddling
Hawaii's 'Lava Bomb' Injures Tourists
Deadly Fire Near Yosemite National Park Doubles
The subscription toy company creates boxes of creative DIY projects that are both educational and fun, says CEO Sandra Oh Lin. “We’re trying to instill that creative confidence as well as the tools.”
A massive heat wave has engulfed the east coast of the United States and has even made its way far to the west. Andrew Freedman, science editor at Axios, discusses why the weather system is so intense, and what has temperatures rising so much.
The e-commerce giant said on Thursday it plans to purchase Boston-based PillPack, which organizes, packages and delivers medications to consumers. Shares of traditional pharmacy companies like CVS and Walgreens plunged on the news.
