Amazon founder to sell shares to fund space company

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Amazon founder Jeff Bezos has announced that he will sell $1 billion worth of Amazon stock each year to fund his company Blue Origin. From next year he wants to offer flights for space tourists.

That Bezos uses his own capital to pay for the space company, he announced during the annual US Space Symposium in Colorado Springs, according to Reuters. The Amazon founder currently owns 16.5 percent of the company. At the current share price, that represents a value of $73.5 billion.

Blue Origin’s plan was to conduct manned test flights this year, but that will likely be postponed until next year, Bezos said. The plan to offer space flights for tourists from 2018 remains in place. The flights with the New Shepard capsule, which can accommodate six people, will last 11 minutes and go up to an altitude of about 100 km. Occupants can then see the curvature of the Earth and experience weightlessness. The flights will not enter orbit around the Earth.

Like SpaceX, Blue Origin aims to make space travel cheaper by landing and reusing the booster stage of rockets. Last year the company presented a new rocket that is being worked on: the New Glenn. It is up to 95 meters high and should be able to send commercial satellites and humans into space. A three-stage version of the rocket should be able to go beyond a low earth orbit. The development of the new rocket will cost about 2.5 billion dollars.

Interior of the New Shepard capsule, which Blue Origin wants to use for space tourism

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