Here’s how Jeff Bezos and crew spent their 4 minutes in space
Jeff Bezos and his crewmates did somersaults and snacked on Skittles as they experienced four minutes of weightlessness on their brief trip to space Tuesday.
The Amazon founder, 57, and his three crewmates marveled at the lack of gravity as they reached heights of 66.5 miles above Earth on the New Shepard rocket, according to video from inside the capsule and played for the public post-flight.
“Oh, wow,” one of them said in awe as they unclipped their safety harness. Another added, “That’s incredible” of the stunning views from space.
Bezos was joined by his 53-year-old younger brother, Mark Bezos, 18-year-old recent high school graduate Oliver Daemen and 82-year-old space pioneer Wally Funk.
“Is it everything you thought it would be?” one of the Bezos brothers asked Funk, to which she exclaimed, “Fantastic!”
Footage showed the crew doing somersaults and playing catch with a ping-pong ball that slowly glided through the air.
“Who wants a Skittle?” Bezos could be heard asking the others, before launching one into the mouth of an upside-down Daemen.
After the crew cheered, Bezos passed the bag of candy to the teen.
“Well done! Here, see if you can toss me one!” Bezos said.
The capsule touched down with the help of parachutes following a little over 10-minute journey.
Bezos later said the experience reminded him of how “tiny” the Earth is.
“The atmosphere is so big. But when you get up above it, you see it’s this tiny little fragile thing,” he said.
“That’s very profound. It’s one thing to recognize that intellectually. It’s another thing to actually see with your own eyes how fragile it really is and that was amazing,” he continued.
The mission was the first commercial flight through Bezos’ space company Blue Origin.
The company said it plans to launch two more flights with commercial customers this year.
