Amazon is going to change our lives, and not just when it comes to purchasing products online. No, Jeff Bezos really wants to take us into space, as tourists, and he promises to do it within just two years. Science fiction or very close reality?
In fact, it seems that Bezos will begin testing space flights with people on board next year and, if all goes well, tourists in groups of six will be able to experience a short space flight as early as 2018. Bezos himself said this, opening up to journalists the doors of his space company headquarters Blue Origin around Seattle.
Blue Origin is not the only company of its kind in the USA: there are also Elon Musk's SpaceX and Richard Branson's Virgin Galactic. Bezos wants to be the first CEO offer tourist space travel to ordinary citizens, up to 100 suborbital flights per year. Obviously, the safety of passengers will be put first.
Amazon's reusable New Shepard space rocket, with crew capsule, carries six passengers, in zero gravity for a ten di minutes before having to return to Earth. There would be many people interested in an experience of this type, obviously at quite high costs. Blue Origin, founded in 2000, has made two successful launches so far. Will we really be able to see the Earth from afar?