Jeff Bezos is almost ready for liftoff.
The Amazon founder will head to space Tuesday morning on his company Blue Origin's first human flight. He'll be boarding the New Shepard rocket alongside his brother, Mark Bezos, as well as 18-year-old Oliver Daemen and 82-year-old Wally Funk. Blue Origin says Daemen and Funk will become "the youngest and oldest astronauts to travel to space." An anonymous person who bid $28 million at an auction was originally set to join Bezos but was replaced by Daemen due to "scheduling conflicts."
Bezos' flight will last about 11 minutes, and the passengers will have around three minutes of weightlessness, according to Space.com. The rocket will launch from Texas and will reach an altitude of more than 62 miles above Earth, CBS News reports. If the flight is successful, NBC News notes that Bezos will "make history for taking part in the first unpiloted suborbital flight with a civilian crew."
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This comes just over a week after British billionaire Richard Branson's recent successful flight to space, which he described as the "experience of a lifetime." Ahead of the Tuesday flight, Bezos told CNN he hopes to build a "road to space for the next generations to do amazing things there." The flight is set for 9:00 a.m. ET and can be watched live below via Blue Origin.
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