Amazon founder Jeff Bezos will board his company’s rocket for first space flight

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Amazon founder Jeff Bezos announced on Monday that he and his brother Mark will board the first manned space flight being undertaken by his rocket company Blue Origin next month for a sightseeing tour. The suborbital trip will kick off a new era of private commercial space travel.</p>
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"Ever since I was five years old, I've dreamed of traveling to space. On July 20th, I will take that journey with my brother," Bezos said in an Instagram post.</p>
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The Blue Origin spacecraft, which is set to carry Bezos and others, has undergone 15 test flights, none of which had any passengers on board.</p>
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Its New Shepard rocket-and-capsule combo is designed to autonomously fly six passengers more than 62 miles (100 km) above Earth into space, high enough to experience a few minutes of weightlessness and see the curvature of the planet before the pressurized capsule returns to earth under parachutes.</p>
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The capsule has six observation windows that are nearly three times as big as those on a Boeing 747 plane and the largest ever used in space, Blue Origin said.</p>
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Blue Origin closed the first round of the auction for seats on the flight last month and said it had received more than 5,200 bidders from 136 countries.</p>
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The current highest bid stood at $2.8 million in the ongoing second round of auction, according to Blue Origin's website.</p>
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Bezos will accompany the winner of an auction for a seat on the first space flight from Blue Origin.</p>