Barely of age, the Dutch Oliver Daemen will be the youngest to overcome the atmosphere in the history of mankind. He will do it next July 20 together with billionaire Jeff Bezos thanks to the New Shepard spacecraft by Blue Origin, the space company founded by Bezos himself. He will do so also thanks to the unexpected commitments that forced the mysterious winner of the auction held last month, which had won the place on board the spacecraft for 28 million dollars, to give up. He has decided to remain anonymous also by communicating the “agenda conflicts” that will keep him on the ground on Tuesday, although Blue Origin has already announced that he will find space in an upcoming mission. Oliver Daemenhe will therefore be the first “paying” passenger on Blue Origin, which has long been selling seats on New Shepard. He takes the place his father Joe, chief executive of Somerset Capital Partners, had booked. Oliver is in the middle of his gap year after graduating from high school last year. He is studying to obtain a pilot’s license and is already enrolled at the University of Utrecht where in September he will start studying physics and “innovation management”.
In the meantime, next Tuesday, the Karman line will reach an altitude of one hundred kilometers, which conventionally establishes the overcoming of the atmosphere and therefore the entry into Space. Together with him, Jeff Bezos and the brother of the billionaire, Mark , there will also be Mary Wallace Funk, called Wally. Born in 1939, she will be the oldest person to arrive in Space, giving the creator of Amazon another first for his mission. Wally Funk knows about firsts. She is a pilot, and was the first woman to take on the role of air safety investigator for the US National Transportation Safety Board, she was the first female instructor at Fort Sill, Oklahoma, and at the Federal aviation agency inspector. She was also among the members of “Mercury 13”, the historic group of women who contributed to the successes of NASA in the 60s and beyond, although they preferred the boys of “Mercury 7” to go to the most tempting goal: to go to Space. .
The “New Shepard 4” mission, the first with a Blue Origin crew, is therefore destined to set new records. It has already done so on 12 June, when the auction closed to win the place on board the spacecraft, with 7,600 people registered from 159 different countries. The proceeds were donated to the Blue Origin foundation, Club for The Future, which helps young people in the study of Stem disciplines (science, technology, engineering and mathematics). With the crew defined, the company is now finalizing preparations at the base located in the West Texas desert. The success recorded last Sunday by Virgin Galactic, Richard Branson
‘s company, will follow closely, another billionaire with the space “vice”. Both point to the future of space tourism and the field of suborbital flight. To close the trio there is Elon Musk , owner of SpaceX, focused instead on more distant shares. The Starship spacecraft has already been selected by NASA to bring American astronauts back to the Moon.
(Photo: Blue Origin)
