{"id":19409,"date":"2016-04-12T20:21:12","date_gmt":"2016-04-12T12:21:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp-productionenv-bjg9h2g2bgg5b8aa.southeastasia-01.azurewebsites.net\/news\/jeff-bezos-describes-future-space-tours-and-explains-why-he-passed-up-a-moon-trip\/"},"modified":"2016-04-12T20:21:12","modified_gmt":"2016-04-12T12:21:12","slug":"jeff-bezos-describes-future-space-tours-and-explains-why-he-passed-up-a-moon-trip","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/news\/jeff-bezos-describes-future-space-tours-and-explains-why-he-passed-up-a-moon-trip\/","title":{"rendered":"Jeff Bezos describes future space tours \u2013 and explains why he passed up a moon trip"},"content":{"rendered":"

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\"Jeff
Billionaire Jeff Bezos watches a replay of a New Shepard suborbital test flight with GeekWire\u2019s Alan Boyle at the Space Symposium in Colorado Springs. (Credit: Tom Kimmell Photography, Courtesy of the Space Foundation)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. \u2013 Amazon billionaire Jeff Bezos had his chance to go into space in a Russian Soyuz capsule \u2013 and not just into space, but around the moon. But he says he\u2019d rather taste the final frontier in a spaceship built by his own company, Blue Origin.<\/p>\n

Bezos touched on what it would take for spaceflight, including what he\u2019s done to prepare for the experience, during my informal chat with him in front of hundreds of attendees here today at the 32nd Space Symposium.<\/p>\n

The Blue Origin space venture was created back in 2000, six years after Bezos founded Amazon, so that he could pursue his childhood dream of going into outer space \u2013 a dream that goes back to watching Neil Armstrong walk on the moon.<\/p>\n

Bezos noted that his high-school girlfriend, Ursula Werner, has been quoted as saying Amazon exists \u201csolely to create money for Blue Origin.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI can neither confirm nor deny that,\u201d he joked.<\/p>\n

But he did confirm that he\u2019s undergone some training for spaceflight \u2013 not under zero-G conditions in an airplane, as many people have done, but in a centrifuge at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Ohio. \u201cIf you\u2019re subject to motion sickness, you might not want to do that,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

He has also tested the seats that will be installed in Blue Origin\u2019s New Shepard suborbital rocket ship. New Shepard already has gone through three successful space launches and landings during autonomous test flights.<\/p>\n

If the schedule proceeds as Bezos hopes it does, test passengers will soar to the edge of space in the New Shepard from Blue Origin\u2019s launch facility in Texas starting next year. That would set the stage for paying passengers to get on board as early as 2018. The price of a ticket has not yet been set.<\/p>\n