Jeff Bezos is getting ready to blast off.
The Amazon founder on Tuesday will fly to space on his company Blue Origin's New Shepard rocket, and Bezos and his fellow passengers gave a series of interviews Monday ahead of the trip.
"I don't know what it's going to mean for me," Bezos told Good Morning America. "Everybody who's been to space says it changes them in some way, and I'm just really excited to figure out how it's going to change me."
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On CBS This Morning, Bezos said he's "excited" and "curious," but "not really nervous" about the trip, something host Gayle King found hard to believe, asking "How is that possible, Jeff?" But Bezos said the team feels "really good" about the trip, which according to CNN will last about 11 minutes. The Amazon founder will be joined by his brother, Mark Bezos, as well as 18-year-old Oliver Daemen and 82-year-old Wally Funk, who according to Blue Origin will be the "youngest and oldest astronauts to travel to space."
The flight will come after billionaire Richard Branson's recent spaceflight, and in a CNN interview, Bezos was asked to respond to critics who are slamming these trips as "joyrides for the wealthy" and want billionaires to focus on solving problems on Earth.
"They're largely right," Bezos responded. "We have to do both. We have lots of problems in the here and now on Earth, and we need to work on those, and we need to look to the future."
Bezos' trip also comes just weeks after he officially stepped down as Amazon CEO, but he told CNN the flight wasn't the reason for that timing.
"I could have done this flight as CEO of Amazon and it would have been fine," he told CNN. "We really believe this flight is safe." Bezos' flight is set for Tuesday morning.
