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Journalism of Courage
Amazon founder Jeff Bezos and three others Tuesday took a trip to space aboard his space venture Blue Origin’s New Shepard launch vehicle and returned safely to Earth. The historic suborbital flight prompted a slew of reactions on social media.
Bezos was joined by his brother Mark Bezos, 82-year-old former aviator Wally Funk, and 18-year-old high school graduate Oliver Daemen. Funk and Daemen became the oldest and youngest people to reach space.
The trip lasted for about 10 minutes and 20 seconds. The capsule returned to Earth deploying parachutes and used a last-minute retro-thrust system that expelled a “pillow of air” for a soft landing in the Texas desert.
Many took to Twitter with congratulatory messages as 57-year-old along with his crewmates touched down safely in West Texas at about 8.22 am local time. Take a look at some reactions here:
https://twitter.com/St_Laurent_Dont/status/1417530165350080529
https://twitter.com/ConnieH_uk/status/1417481107302490119
https://twitter.com/ConnieH_uk/status/1417556810354110469
This comes nine days after Briton Richard Branson flew to space on his competing space tourism shuttle, Virgin Galactic.
According to a Reuters report, the mission was part of a fiercely competitive battle between Bezos’ Blue Origin and fellow billionaire Richard Branson’s Virgin Galactic to tap a potentially lucrative space tourism market the Swiss bank UBS estimates will be worth $3 billion annually in a decade.
