Jeff Bezos stepped down as Amazon’s CEO earlier this month, but he’s found an exciting way to pass the time (and we’re sure there is plenty more where this came from). On Tuesday, Bezos embarked on a trip to outer space aboard his own spacecraft, Blue Origin, and made a safe return with his crew members. Upon climbing off his Blue Origin spacecraft, Bezos told his awaiting audience that it was the “best day ever.”
Jeff Bezos was joined on the capsule by his brother Mark Bezos, as well as Wally Funk, who at 82, is the oldest person to go to space, and Oliver Daemen, the youngest person to ever go to space at 18-years old. Bezos and his three-person crew launched from Blue Origin’s Launch Site One facility in West Texas at 9:00 AM EST. At above 107 kilometers above the Earth, they stayed up in flight for over ten minutes and 27 seconds.
Blue Origin lifts off – Joe Raedle/Getty Images
Although Jeff Bezos is the most recent billionaire who made a voyage to space and back, he’s not the first. Nine days earlier, Virgin Group founder Sir Richard Branson also went on a journey to outer space and back. Branson, like Bezos, used a spacecraft from his own company to complete his mission. Branson used a rocket powered plan from his Virgin Galactic enterprise to successfully go to and back from outer space all in the same day.