The American company Blue Origin plans to carry out two more launches of its New Shepard spacecraft with passengers on board. This was announced on Tuesday, July 20, at a press conference by billionaire Jeff Bezos, who owns the company.
"We will have two more flights with people [on board] this year," Bezos said at a press conference broadcast by CNN. the central TV channels were leading.
The Amazon founder added that he is not yet sure that the company will carry out manned launches of the ship next year.
"We will decide what the frequency of [manned launches] will gradually become. We want it to be very high, " Bezos concluded.
Earlier in the day, the New Shepard spacecraft with a crew of four people, including Jeff Bezos, made a test suborbital space flight. It lasted about 11 minutes, the ship was controlled automatically. The passengers of the ship, in addition to Bezos, were his younger brother Mark, 82-year-old Wally Funk, a professional pilot, and 18-year-old Oliver Damen from the Netherlands.
They could experience a feeling of weightlessness for three minutes. It is noted that Funk became the oldest person who visited space, and Damen — the youngest.
